Health Gossip: Medical practitioners honour Akinkugbe at 80

In a report by Guardian Newspaper Nigeria, It was an honour well deserved as health professionals, academics and medical experts gathered at the University of Ibadan (UI) to celebrate an icon and doyen of medicine, Prof Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe who recently turned 80.

The occasion was a symposium on global perspective in emerging diseases.

At the programme, which held at the International Conference Centre, UI, health experts spoke on the various health challenges facing the people and the way forward for the nation's healthcare system.

In his keynote address, Chairman of Eko Hospital and past president, West African College of Physicians, Dr Sonny Kuku, reviewed the nation's health system from the 1970s and concluded that it needed urgent intervention.

He noted that despite several efforts at building the nation's health sector, it is yet to achieve the desired results.

According to Kuku: "We are still grossly falling short of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), life expectancy has dropped to mid-forties, our elites are still traveling abroad for healthcare and even more worrisome is the fact that we now have masses of middle class Nigerians traveling to India, from an emerging economy like ours to address their health needs.

"Clearly, our health system is still unable to meet the needs of its people. Unfortunately, our healthcare needs will not wait for our health system to catch up before being exacerbated by now emerging threats such as the accelerating hypertension and diabetes epidemic."

Kuku recalled that the 1973 symposium focused on the identification of national health priorities in the evolution of the health provision for the 3rd National Development Plan. It advocated for health to be moved from a second tier national priority to a 1st tier priority citing the role of health in economic development. Its' conclusion were for a strong case for the articulation of a National Health Policy and for a focus on manpower across the cadres of health professionals.

He noted that at the time of the second symposium in 1993, health had become a national priority and a national health policy founded on social justice and equity had been promulgated. The cornerstone of the policy was the anchoring of Primary Health Care at the local government level with a clear three-tier system with defined roles and responsibilities.

"The second symposium concluded with the hope and expectation that the three tiers of healthcare would be further strengthened and that healthcare financing solutions would be developed and implemented to enable further development of the three tiers and effective healthcare delivery. Forty years after the first symposium, a lot of effort has gone into building Nigeria's health yet we are still failing to achieve our hopes for the health of Nigerians."

In his presentation, Prof Pekka Puska who is the Director General, National Public Health Institute said prevention and control of Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) is a global health priority. The Doctor of Epidemology and Public Health in his paper titled, "Health: The Finland Experience" said comprehensive action is needed to tackle the scourge adding however that from public health point of view, a population based prevention is the key.

Prof Puska listed the key components of the global strategy to include surveillance; paying attention to behavioural risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy
diet, physical inactivity as well as alcohol intake. As a form of prevention, he stressed the need to stay away from saturated fat, vegetable oil, tobacco consumption and cholesterol in men. He concluded by saying that population based NCD prevention by appropriate policies and health promotion activities are the most effective way to improve public health.

The Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu expressed optimism that the scientific meeting was taking place at a time the nation is reporting some cheery news in public health. " Guinea worm disease has been eradicated, even though polio is still endemic, the transmission of the type three virus has been interrupted for more than one year now for the first time in the history of the country, leaving us to contend with type one only and even this is now on the decline.

"Maternal mortality ratio fell from 545 per 100,000 in 2008 to 350 per 100n000 in 2012 while under five mortality rate from 157 per 1000 to 94 per 1000 within the same period. The prevalence of malaria and HIV/AIDS are also declining as evidenced by our most recent national surveys."

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN