The recent dismal reports in some Nigerian tabloids on the high rate of the incidence of kidney diseases are frightening, especially because they concern the productive sector of the country’s demography: the youth. Incidentally and unfortunately, the affected group can barely handle the cost of seeking medical relief and, for the most part, they are left with two dire choices: to despair or die.
A nephrologist was quoted in the report as saying that “we estimate that we get about 15,000 new patients with chronic kidney disease every year. About 50,000 patients in Nigeria require dialysis, but just 1,000 are on it as we speak. The prevalence rate of kidney failure in Nigeria is 15 per cent and this is high in every sense.”
Of course, the expert could only refer to the figures of reported cases because the difference between sufferers and reported cases accounts for many people who die from lack of appropriate care, which is usually induced by poverty and ignorance. There are also many other cases that are being handled, though inexpertly, by alternative care givers which may have escaped the quoted statistics. There are also many heart-rending stories of punctuated lives and suspended hopes that probably could have been different if the context had been altered by solid public health policy and education.
The sufferers’ need for medical intervention and relief, both of which are prohibitive in terms of cost, has made the country’s dailies to become usually inundated with solicitous articles appealing on their behalf to philanthropists for financial assistance. To an extent, some philanthropists have tried to assist many of these sufferers, but the truth is that it is clearly the function of the state to protect life and property.
It is meet and proper to expect the state to find out the reason for the prevalence of kidney diseases through research and thereafter find how the national problem as identified can be solved. If experts have concluded that the prevalence rate is high then it naturally behoves the state to intervene meaningfully through funding and massive public education to reduce this prevalence rate.
Both lifestyle and other diseases like HIV, hypertension and diabetes are implicated in the prevalence of chronic kidney diseases. The resort to herbal cleansers and various analgesics that are not on doctors’ prescription have also aggravated the situation of renal failure in the country. It is disconcerting to find that even the literate youths who ordinarily should be sceptical of these herbal cleansers that are alcohol based drink it with relish.
According to one of the experts, youths in their 20s, 30s and 40s have been reporting for dialysis due to kidney problems. This situation of kidney diseases’ prevalence in the group which forms the working and productive sector of the country’s demography and comprises people who are expected to be breadwinners for their families must have a telling effect on the country’s economy.
The government should embark on a massive campaign urging members of this group to lead clean and healthy lives and stop risking their lives on habits that will compromise their health. It is also imperative for the government to dissuade the sale of alcoholic cleansers by insisting on the producers entering a caveat to warn their patrons of the debilitating effects of its compulsive consumption.
The public hospitals should be equipped with gadgets that can make dialysis more readily available to those sufferers that cannot afford the cost. We once suggested the need for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to be made more inclusive so that more people can partake of its facilities. It is also necessary for the government to make dialysis cheaper by subsidising the services across the country.
It is not proper to make the sufferers to travel long distances to access dialysis and this also means that the necessary facilities and the requisite experts must be made available in many hospitals. All these are far to seek in a country that has become complacent in the post graduate specialist training and residency programmes for its doctors. This training should be encouraged among its medical personnel as the dearth of specialists can also affect the availability of relief negatively.
The prevalence of kidney failure should be viewed with equal seriousness as HIV/AIDS and dealt with accordingly.
Hmmm, I think enlightenment on the ways to prevent it is a key way forward