In a demonstration of its commitment to promote, support healthy living among Nigerians and contribute to the fight against Sickle Cell Disease, Amazing Grace Diagnostics held an awareness program about Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) in Ogun State.

World Sickle Cell Day is observed annually on June 19 to increase global awareness, knowledge and understanding of sickle cell disease and the suffering faced by the affected people.

The program held at owode-Egba Ogun State on Sunday was to contribute to well being of children living with the sickle cell disease.

The program, with the Theme: ” SHINE THE LIGHT ON SICKLE CELL “, began with a novelty football match between Female Machine Football Club and Faweh Football Academy.

The football match was followed by an awareness walk on the streets, free testing for people and a lecture about the killing Cell at the Owode-Egba town hall.

Prominent guests like HRM Oba Kolawole Sowemimo, Medical Practioners, Healthcare providers, Parents/Guardians, Religious institutions, Children and sickle warriors were in attendance.

The organizer who is the Director of Amazing Grace Diagnostics, Mr. Harrison Omoragbon (Medical Laboratory Scientist) stated that the reason behind the initiative was to sensitize the people most especially the young ones not to continue the circle of mistake other parents made, to know their Genotype and make informed decision before getting into relationship as well as give hope to the sickle cell warriors.

“This programme is targeted at promoting awareness of sickle cell disorder; educating the community on prevention and management of sickle cell anemia and encourage warriors (sicklers) to have positive attitude to life as well as create database for information management and sharing.

“It is rural outreach where we talk to people about Sickle Cell and run free Genotype and blood group Testing. We are also providing free medication for people affected with Sickle Cell. This is our first outreach and we are happy to be well-received by the community members. People at the rural community lack access to real information and we want to help.”

Speaker at the event, Dr Oke Joshua, said that it is important to make information available to individuals, families and communities to reduce the likelihood of couples having children suffering from the disease.

“We all know how deadly the Sickle Cell Disease is, that’s why we are here with Amazing Grace Diagnostics to spread the gospel.”

Doctor Oke, further used diagrams to explain Genetic Compatibility, blood groups and genotypes.

According to him, information about these will help to know the type of blood each person has and influence choice of who to marry.

Meanwhile, The HRM Oba Kolawole Sowemimo, the Olu of Owode Egba lauded the organizers for the initiative and appealed to government to help create more awareness about the deadly disease.

“It’s a very good initiative and I commend Amazing Grace Diagnostics for doing such thing in our community. It will go a long way in prevent the spread of the disease. However we need more NGOs to follow Amazing Grace Diagnostics footsteps and help the people of the know more about what we are doing today.”

Meanwhile, the organizers promised to hold more awareness program as part of the contribution to the community.

The versatile Lincoln Lion star has done well to combine football and education in the United States of America since arriving from her native NIGERIA.

Bello who also studied at Methodist High School, Sagamu says the love for the Healthcare profession really inspired her.

She mused in a chat with the Media: “Most people value their health above everything else in their lives whether they know it or not. When someone is sick or injured, his or her normal way of life is disrupted and health care practitioners have the incredible opportunity to restore these people’s lives to normalcy and even save some from death itself.”

“Becoming a Health Practitioner means learning everything there is to know about the human body. The human body itself is an incredible thing to study and medical students and doctors have the opportunity to further examine it with the most innovative technology. From the pumping of the heart to drugs that take away pain to machines that allow you look inside a person, modern medicine remains one of the most fascinating subjects in the world. By the virtue of their title, we are trusted with sensitive information that most other people would not have access to. Patients share their deepest concerns with their doctors in hopes of being healed. To be trusted to this extent by anybody is a great honor.”

“Health care experts are considered the leaders in health care and often have the final say on treatment decisions. When they talk, people usually listen. We interact with different kinds of people with various ailments every day. The variety of experiences guarantees that every day will have some sort of excitement.”

“Just because you are a health care expert does not mean you have to see patients all day every day. There are numerous opportunities available for MD’s and DO’s: clinical research, basic science research, journalism, consulting, business ventures, hospital administration, public health, and public policy,” she added.

Sarata Bello is expected to graduate from Lincoln City University before the year runs out.

The members of Medical and Dental Consultant Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Lokoja, has urged the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders to give topmost priority to health sector for quality healthcare delivery in the country.

The call was made on Thursday during the ”Time In Service Ceremony”, in honour of two MDCAN retirees; Dr Oyeniyi Oyewole and Dr Oluseyi Adeosun, as part of activities to mark the association’s 2021 Biennial General Meeting (BGM), tagged: ”Preparing Well For Retirement; Challenges & Solutions”, at FMC Lokoja.

In his remarks, Dr William Adeyemi, the MDCAN Chairman, FMC Lokoja, said the association was celebrating two of her retirees, a Surgeon and an Anaesthetist, saying, ”we are happy celebrating them today as a mark of honour and respect for them.

”It is a honour to have seen them worked and put their medical profession in practice in an excellent way, that is why we planned this ceremony for them today to appreciate what they have done”.

Speaking on challenges facing the health sector, Adeyemi noted that infrastructural deficits remained one of the major challenges facing health sector in Nigeria.

According to him, we have the manpower as most of the doctors, nurses and other professionals around have the capacity to carry out their best, but there are no infrastructures to work with.

”When you go abroad, you work with good equipment, and when you come back home there are deficits, so what do you do?

”You plan going back abroad to go and continue your work where you will be comfortable. These are the issues we are facing in Nigeria.

”We are hoping that with time there would be improvement in equipping most of the hospitals to meet the standard”, Adeyemi said.

In his remarks, Dr Olatunde Alabi, the Medical Director, FMC, Lokoja, said it was a beautiful thing celebrating two of their medical professionals at FMC Lokoja, who were retiring.

According to him, they have laboured and this is a day in which they have to be honoured, because everybody is happy with their contributions to the practice of medicine in FMC Lokoja and Nigeria as a whole.

He described the retiring consultants as men of sacrifice, compassion, and sincerity, who had contributed their best and rendered selfless services.

The medical director urged the upcoming medical professionals to learn by example as everybody’s retirement day would definitely come one day.

”So, we should learn from their own examples, because everybody is happy with them today, so that people can also be happy with you.

”They can come to FMC Lokoja safely without any hindrance after their retirement, and they are welcome any time”, Alabi said.

The Chairperson of the occasion, Dr Janet Ipinyomi, said she was quite impressed with the occasion being her first time of attending such, and congratulated the celebrants for successful years of service, saying it was very colorful.

”I will encourage all doctors to join the MDCAN once they become consultants because I don’t have the opportunity to be a member when I was a consultant here almost 20 years ago.

”But I am glad that the younger people have made a lot of advances in the profession”, she said.

In their separate comments, the two celebrants, Dr Oyeniyi Oyewole, a Consultant Anaesthetist and Dr Oluseyi Adeosun, a Consultant Maxilofacial surgeon both appreciated the effort of MDCAN and management of FMC Lokoja, for the honour bestowed on them in making the program a unique one.

”I feel very happy because I never expected this kind of honour.

”The event is very unique because they put it at the beginning of the MDCAN Annual General Meeting, and not isolated from it”, Oyewole said.

Oyewole advised the federal government to give health sector a top priority in Nigeria in order to reduce brain drain.

”If you consider what is happening now, I am not happy at all because professionals are going out of the country.

”I also got two different letters to come to Saudi Arabia, but I am yet to say yes or no to those letters.

”I want to believe in the next three to five years, I wonder if we are going to have somebody like us in the country again.

”So, that is the more reason the federal government should prioritise the health sector and make the first in its priority list”, he said.

He stressed the need for federal government to always do the needful as far as the health sector was concerned in Nigeria, saying, ”no doctor actually like strike because hospital is our second home”.

On the issue of retirement age, he urged the federal government to extend the retirement age of medical practitioners working in the hospital to 70 years so as to impact more knowledge on the upcoming doctors.

According to him, we are just training consultants and throwing them away; the number of Nigerians in European Countries and USA today are so many.

”If our hospitals are made comfortable even after retirement, I am ready to stay and train people rather than going abroad.

”Money is not everything though it is part of it; I am still agile and ready to impact knowledge at age 60”, Oyewole said.

On his part, Dr Oluseyi Adeosun, a Consultant Maxilofacial surgeon expressed his displeasure over the current trend of incessant strike associated with the health sector, saying ”it is frustrating and discouraging the medical practitioners”.

Adeosun noted that paralysing activities in the hospitals was not making the practice to be smooth, saying it was not so in the past when he was in university.

He stressed that the incessant strike was reducing the quality of the practice of doctors in this present days and making the health system to be going down the drain in Nigeria

He, therefore advised the striking resident doctors (NARD) to go back to the negotiation table and re-negotiate with the government on their demands.

”There is what we called, ‘Compromise Democracy’ where both parties will make compromise.

”We don’t expect government to give us all our demands, but the one Government is able to do, the NARD should accept it, and go back to work”, he said.

He, however urged the federal government to fulfill its own promises made to NARD, saying, ”you have signed documents which should be strictly abided to and actualised.

”The federal government should fulfill their promises in those documents so that the NARD can go back to work”, he said.

Adeosun also noted that the procurement of substandard equipment by Governments’ contractors for hospitals, was also a major challenge, saying most of the equipment are substandard and don’t last.

He urged the government to stop procuring medical equipment from Asian countries, but to patronise European countries and US who are known for producing quality, durable and long lasting equipment.

He added that the zeal and enthusiasm for doctors to work was no more there because of poor motivation, which had hindered the delivering of quality service to patients.

He added that the economic situation in the country, had made lots of doctors to be inclined in pursuing money, which had made many of them to abandon their core assignment

He advised government to motivate health workers by creating a conducive environment for doctors to work with adequate standard equipments to avoid brain drain.

”All these problems have reduced the quality of service that are being given to patients in this country”, he said.

The highlight of the occasion was the presentation of Award and a Scanfrost gascooker to each of the celebrants, presented to them by the MD FMC Lokoja, Dr Olatunde Alabi, and the Chairperson of the occasion, Dr Janet Ipinyomi.

End