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By Brown Chimezie
Dr Oragui Chukwudozie Philip is Medical Director, Dove Hospital, Obadore, Lagos. In this interview, he spoke on the rising cases of cerebrovascular accident, commonly referred to as stroke. He said early diagnosis, treatment and living healthy life could reduce cases of stroke-related diseases.
What’s your take on the assertions that men are risk takers who hardly attend to their health needs?
To a reasonable extent, that assertion is correct. I usually put it in a particular way that man’s life is all about taking risk. Men take a lot of risk to protect their family, and advance the interest of their family. So, at times they ends up not taking care of themselves. and that tells on them, overtime, they find themselves seriously ill because issues that should have been taken care of years back are allowed until it becomes of serious health concern.
How can this trend be reversed especially in Nigeria where it is very difficult to make ends meet?
Honestly to reverse this trend is cumbersome. When you look at the kind of health policy we have in Nigeria, and the level of awareness of the general populace, you will find out that the health policy is inadequate. The awareness is nothing to write home about.
I would honestly say that the best way to reverse this ugly trend is to have a general health insurance that would allow every person, all classes of people in the society to have access to affordable healthcare. I tell you part of the reason men don’t go for medical check-up is because they want to spend the money on the needs of the family at the expense of their own personal needs.
So if you have health coverage that allow people to access basic healthcare without having to pay from their pocket, you will find out that more men would be able to come to hospitals for their health needs.
Can you throw more lights on stroke which appears to be on the rise?
Stroke otherwise known as Cerebrovascular Accidents (CVA) is complications of Hypertension or a complications of diabetes. But most often, it is a complication of Hypertension. Sometimes it is due to a rupture of blood vessels inside the brain.
It could be as a result of occlusion if the vessel inside the brain is blocked. Let me use a layman’s language. When it is blocked or clouded, it can leads to stroke.
Or if the blood vessel is ruptured, that could also lead to stroke. If someone has hypertension that is not controlled, it could leads to stroke. If one has a diabetes that is not well controlled, the person may likely ends up with stroke.
Now that stroke is on the rise, what are the common symptoms of these ailments?
One of the reason stroke is on the rise is because a lot of men these days tends to have hypertension and diabetes. Stroke arises from two main causes:
1) Rupture of blood vessels in the brain.
2) Occlusion of blood vessels in the brain.
Type 2 diabetes occurs mostly among people of 40 years and above.
Sometimes these men don’t even know because at this stage of their life, they are already facing economics challenges. This leads to stress which becomes aggravated because they don’t even have time to visit doctors. So they keep managing to make ends meet and overtime, it becomes complicated leading to diabetes or hypertension. Any of these two ailments can leads to stroke.
To manage it, men should know that they don’t have to fall into trap that the society has set for them, that you have to own house, cars, etc. at a particular age and by so doing put unnecessary pressure on yourself. You ought to know that winner is the person who lives long and not who amassed the largest amount of wealth.
Can things we consume like alcohol aggravate this ailments?
Everything about human life is all about moderation. Alcohol has to be moderated. Alcohol is not necessary but if you must take, then moderation is the watchword. If you are not given to alcohol, it is better you don’t delve into it.
But if you are already drinking, you have to observe limit. It is not as if it is alcohol that causes all the problems but it becomes problem when the person abuses it.
When you look at healthcare in Nigeria compare to global practices, would you say we have done well?
If you put all the available skill, awareness, infrastructures and facilities into considerations, you will see that Africa and Nigeria in particular are not doing well. There are some countries that are doing well; some countries also outside Africa may not also be doing too well. Look at our country Nigeria for instance. The sophistication of average Nigerian is not something to write home about. The standard of education, the health awareness, is not top notch. The facilities in the country are obsolete and not up to standard. If you look at the skill available, we are not yet there. You will see people parading certificate but can hardly defend it. When you talk of skill and availability of health practitioners, there is already problems of brain drain as good hands migrates abroad in search of better pay. So we are coming from position of weakness. Can you put Nigeria at per with the Arabs, Chinese, not to talk of India or Europeans? We are not doing well enough.
This situation is even made worse by antics of government of the day which pay little or no attention to health matters.
When you go to other parts of the world, you find Nigerian doctors doing well, but at home here, they perform below standards. What could be responsible for this development?
I was in US sometimes last year and I was amazed by numbers of Nigerian doctor I found there vis- a-vis their profession. As health practitioner myself, I looked at it from different angles.
I think the average Nigerian citizen don›t even appreciate Nigerian doctors. If you are a Nigerian doctor and you diagnosed patient about a particular ailment, the patient is more likely to believe a non-Nigerian doctor even with lower experience than you do. An example that comes to mind was that of a popular Nigeria at home here who was diagnosed of an ailment and recommendations made. Instead of this particular person to adhere to the recommendation, she traveled to the USA and got the medical advice from the US surgeon.
The rest is now history as the Nigerian doctor was later proved right 13 years after.
Some of the things we can do to reverse this trend is to increase health awareness. Health education should be taught from primaries to secondary school level.
Another factor undermining Nigeria healthcare is unfavorable policies of our government agencies at the port. Nothing in healthcare is made in Nigeria and when you import, you pay through your nose to bring them into the country thus putting healthcare beyond the reach of common man on the street.
