The constant neglect of the Nigerian health sector has again been brought to the fore as none of the eight radiotherapy machines meant to treat over 100,000 cancer patients yearly in the country is functional.
While highly placed individuals including President Muhammadu Buhari can afford to travel abroad to seek medical care, the vast majority of Nigerian cancer patients, about 80,000 who can not afford to, die each year due to pitiful attention paid to the health sector.
“The radiotherapy machine at the hospital broke down as a result of overuse, and currently it is the only functioning machine in the country, but it broke down last week,” Francis Durosinmi-Etti, chairman, National Consultative Committee on Cancer Control in Nigeria (NCCCN), says.
Durosinmi-Etti further says that there are many patients who have been booked for treatment, but they are disappointed because the machine had broken down, as there is a list of about hundreds of patients that have been scheduled for treat, awaiting treatment. “Cancer does not wait for anyone,” he says.
Experts say Nigeria has competent doctors and technicians, but inadequate resources have always been the bane of the sector.
Health practitioners are miffed over the Federal Government’s decision to allocate N252.87 billion to recurrent and N51 billion for the health sector in the 2017 budget, saying it will limit access to millions of Nigerians, especially the poor and vulnerable who depend on government-funded primary healthcare facilities.
“The budget proposals are too low to achieve any appreciable impact in the health sector, government is still not paying adequate attention to primary healthcare, which is what the country needs,” Obitade Obimakinde of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, says on a telephone, when the budget proposals were announced.
The average cost of procuring a radiotherapy machine is between $1.5 million and $2 million, depending on the size and capability. “Nigerian needs about 200 machines to meet its needs,” Durosinmi-Etti says.
Mohammed Habeebu, head of department, consultant oncologist and radiotherapist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), says cancer is on the rise in Nigeria, especially from women in the form of breast, cervical and colon cancer. There is also prevalence of prostate cancer and more in children.
“We receive 20 new cases every day and 60 new cases per week. Our clinic days are three times a week and we have about 350-400 patients on each day,” Habeebu says, saying treating patients in an economy in recession means that drugs are beyond the reach of many people.
“Patients on radiotherapy treatment pay the sum of N50,000 for 1-10 days of treatment and N100,000 for 11 days – 4 weeks of treatment, and the charges increase depending how long the treatment will last,” he says.
He also notes that the radiotherapy machine is supposed to treat an average of 65 patients a day, “but we go as much as 110 patients and above in a day. Overuse is the problem of the machine.”
Remi Ajekigbe, head, radiotherapy and oncology at LUTH, says radiotherapy machine is highly technical and required specialised handling, and “the machine can breakdown if the workload is too much. However, in most cases outside the country, they provide back-up in case the one being used is faulty; they do not rely on one machine.”
Ajekigbe says the problem with the radiotherapy machine in LUTH is the panel. The panel is used to control the couch where the patient is placed. A patient cannot be treated without the panel in the machine working properly.
Meanwhile, cancer patients are clinging to every strand of hope, as David Akpan, scheduled for February 27, after completing chemotherapy waited for three months to start radiotherapy only to be told the machine had broken down.
“I have not been given another date for appointment, nobody seems to know when the machine will be fixed, nobody seems to know anything,” he says.
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