In a bid to protect lives of members of the society, CrimsonBow Sickle Cell Initiative, a sickle cell-based Non- Governmental Organisation has trained community healthcare workers in Lagos to mitigate the spread and mortality of patients at grassroots.
Miss Timi Edwin, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CrimsonBow SCI told Daily Focus Newspaper on Thursday at the grand finale of the three days’ training, which commenced on Tuesday, that the workshop was to bridge the knowledge gap among workers at Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC).
According to her, since the secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities are overburdened, the foundation thought it vital to help patients get treatments and counsels at the PHCs level being the closest to the people.
“We want nurses, doctors, lab technicians and all community health workers to be adequately informed and briefed on genetic counseling to slow down spread and pains of sickle cell in our society.
“Knowledge is power. Community health workers must be trained in order to reduce the spread the sickle cell diseases and mortality.
“We want health workers at this level to also know how to handle sickle cell patients. Most people shy away from treating sickle cell patients, and if they do, they don’t treat them with specialised care.
“The narrative of people living with sickle cell dying is not really because it is not a treatable condition but because of the negligence and mismanagement.
“We have come and to change this mismanagement of the situation with this training of first line health workers at the primary health cares,” the CrimsonBow founder said.
According to her, no fewer that 80 primary health workers are being trained in conjunction with Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria, Sickle Cell Advocacy and Management Initiative,, TonyMay Foundation, Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Alliance among others.
She explained that the group met with PHC board for partnership as well as Haematology Department at the Obafemi Awolowo University among other stakeholders to ensure training on best world practice in handling the case.
Leading the training, Prof. Norah Akinola, Head of Department, Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife in Osun, said that knowledge and practice of sickle cell disease in hospitals, particularly at the primary healthcare level needs to be upgraded.
Akinola, also the Programme Administrator for Comprehensive New Born Screening Programme, South West, Nigeria, said that such training had become imperative so as to reduce the population of sickle cell patients coming to the secondary and tertiary level of care.
She said that the training had imparted up-to-date general knowledge about sickle cell disease and care in the primary healthcare workers and how to counsel, educate and interact with the patients.
Emphasising the need for PHC to take up new born screening for sickle cell disorder, the professor, urged governments across levels to rise up and do something about the spread of the diseases.
“We are hoping that eventually the Federal Government will help us incorporate sickle cell diagnosis and treatment into the health insurance scheme of the various states and ultimately in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
“If the Federal Government incorporates it into NHIS, then the problem is solved,” Akinola said.
Speaking, Dr Olufunto Kalejaiye, Consultant/ Physician/ Haematology, Department of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said that the training was to raise awareness and promote new born screening for sickle cell with a view to reducing sickle cell disease.
Also, Mr Olayemi Onijala, the Head, Laboratory, Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria, said that the more knowledgeable healthcare workers were about sickle cell and genetic counseling, the more hope for patients and the society.
Onijala said that, at the moment, there were new ways of diagnosing sickle cell disease, saying technology had make the job so easy to know the genotype of babies event before birth within 24 hours for patients to have a good chance to live.
“Most couples fall victims of wrong diagnosis, hence this training of the health officers on proper diagnosis. It will go a long way to reduce the population of sickle cell in our society,” Onijala said.
Dr Modupeola Oyesiji, Director, Primary Healthcare and Health Management Centre (PRIMAC), an Ibadan-based NGOs told Daily Focus Newspaper that efforts must to redoubled in creating awareness about genotype to prevent unnecessary suffering and agony mnay families were going through.