Dr. Dayo Adeyanju is the Commissioner for Health, Ondo State. In an interview with Martins Ifijeh, he proffered solutions to a number of issues in the health sector. Excerpts:

 

On the ban of sale of caskets near hospitals in Ondo State

We have told them in the state that those who sell caskets and have funeral ambulances near hospitals must remove them. They should situate their businesses in at least one kilometre from the hospital, because this on its own will have a way of affecting the outcome of patients' treatment when they visit the hospital. What do you expect of a patient who, while coming into the hospital for treatment, is seeing caskets, and funeral ambulances? Whoever is coming to the hospital should rather see things that would give him or her hope, not things that would make them defeated, even before they receive treatment. On this observation, we are also sending a bill to the House of Assembly in this regards, so that it will be backed by law, and we urge our state and federal governments to effect the same thing because it's going to impact on our mortality rate positively.

 

When patients visit the hospital and they see things that represent hope, it will most likely help their treatment process. That is why we are promoting ecotherapy in our hospitals. There should be lots of flowers with good scents, because we have discovered treatment is not all about drugs alone. We have started planting beautiful flowers with good scents in our hospitals. For a hospital that has 'queen of the night' flowers all over, you can imagine the good and soothing smell that will be emanating from such places.

 

I have told them here in hospitals where nurses wear red clothes in accident and emergency units, that they should consider other colours, not red.When an accident victim sees a nurse on red, do you think that would rather calm the patient down, or even increase his or her case? We are also advocating same therapy for the colours of paint of hospital wards. The paints in the labour room must be that which will not be too contradictory for the patient. The paints in the delivery room should be that which will calm a woman who just delivered. All these things matter a lot in treatments.

 

On license and control of alternative medicine in Nigeria

The importance of regulation of medicines in the country must always be a priority. All these people producing alternative medicine should be regulated very well. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, is licensing too many valueless drugs and products. Sometimes you see all manner of funny drugs, yet they are licensed by NAFDAC. There is no drug that can cure malaria and at the same time cure impotence. They are two different health challenges.

 

Different diseases have different cures. Viral infection is different from bacteria infection. So also are infections that affect urinary tracts, as they are different from the ones that affect urinary tract.

 

Sometimes you see some of the makers of these alternative medicines bragging that someone can defecate urine. You cant defecate urine, neither can you urinate faeces. This means those who say you will urinate fibroid are talking rubbish and do not understand simple biology. How can you urinate something in the reproductive tract. Intake of some of these rubbish can increase chances of getting diseases like cancer.

 

Ten years ago, I predicted there will be a lot of kidney diseases, and today they are everywhere. One of the chief reasons for this is the presence of too many alternative medicines. NAFDAC need to do more in terms of regulation, especially in the area of this alternative medicine, which unfortunately are mostly patronised by Nigerians.

 

On cancer care and the dearth of radiotherapy machines in Nigeria

The reason we are still struggling with establishing radiotherapy machines in Nigeria, even though cancer scourge is becoming very common among us is because we still lack the right leadership in that regard. When somebody die of cancer, it's not only the person that is lost, the death itself will fracture the family structure. The standard of living of the children left behind may drop, as well as affect their education.

 

With the notoriety the scourge is gaining in the country, it is important people are aware of what to do and things to avoid in order to prevent it. For a developing nation like ours, where there are no adequate facilities to manage the scourge, what we must do is to take cancer prevention seriously, and that is why Nigerians should make conscious efforts to shun foods and lifestyles that predisposes them to cancer. We should as well not ignore the fact that routine screening can go a long way in preventing the disease. For people who have done cancer screening before hand, if there are traces of pre-cancer cells, it would be detected and removed before it starts taking shape," he noted.

 

For women, self-examination for breast cancer is key to preventing it. We know how common this type of cancer is among Nigerian women, but if self-examination habit is imbibed, it won't be as common as it presently is.

 

Exercise and some types of food help in gastric motility, which in turn can prevent certain types of cancer. When food stay for so long in the body, some certain radicals will be produced which may cause cancer. It is a bad manner for someone to stay for days without using the toilet. Such people must take plenty of fruits, vegetable, water, as well as exercise, so that they can flush their system and sweat out.

 

On the controversy whether Suya actually causes cancer or not

What is more likely to cause cancer in the barbecue is the red pepper sprayed on the meat. The particular pepper used, according to some researches, suggests that it contains certain chemicals, which when added to the grilled meat, tends to provoke carcinogenesis, leading to gastric cancer.

 

On establishment of cancer registry in the country

Though we have a cancer registry in University College Hospital, Ibadan, what we need now is a cancer registry that is comprehensive, that can tell us which cancer is more prevalent and where they occur most. When we talk about brain, skin, thyroid, breast, cervical and all other cancers, where can we say they are more common and why are they so. These are information that will help cancer prognosis and outcome. We should have cancer registries in at least every geo-political zone in the country.

 

On Ondo State as serial award winner on eradication of polio

When we discovered that our Abiye and Agbebiye initiatives were yielding results, with mother and child mortality greatly reduced in the state, we decided to increase the initiative in such a way that these infants being given birth to will not die from vaccine preventable diseases before their fifth birthday, hence our decision to start the ORIREWA programme.

 

ORIREWA, literally in Yoruba land means our joy is complete and it is an acronym for Ondo State Routine Immunisation Reaching Every Ward Always. So the programme is aimed at creating a peer pressure to effortlessly aid our women in presenting their children for immunisation.

 

This programme is also recording good success just like the Abiye and the Agbebiye because we put mechanism in place that encourages our mothers to bring their children to our various health facilities for all round immunisation. Children who die before the age of five will obviously not benefit from our free bus shuttle and will not attend our mega schools. So, for them to benefit, they must live beyond the age of five, and one of the guarantee for that is that they must be immunised with all the necessary vaccination. The mothers will also be entitled to micro credits. With these benefits in mind, no mother denies her child of the various immunisation in place.

 

The children must complete the vaccinations over the period of five years. So what we have done is that we made sure these vaccines must be at every healthcare facility in the state, so that any mother that comes with her child would not have reason not to get immunisation for that child. There are at no point we ever run out of vaccines.

 

To make sure these drugs are rightly preserved across every local government in the state, there are solar panel freezers that can stay for two weeks when fully charged. So we were able to rule out issues that may arise from lack of power supply.

 

ORIREWA has made us serial award winners in areas of polio vaccination. In a role, we have won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation award as the most outstanding state in the area of polio vaccination. If they do the award again next year, we will still win it, because we have established a perfect structure on vaccination and this has yielded results.

 

One good thing about Orirewa is that the state task force is functional, ably led by Governor Olusegun Mimiko. Myself, all traditional rulers relevant to the cause, other state functionaries, among others. So with this, we have been able to reduce bottlenecks. Complaints and recommendations are treated with speed.

 

Source : All Africa News