Cardiothoracic Surgeons in Nigeria Meet on Better Practice
Cardiothoracic practice in Nigeria is developing but faces multiple challenges that need to be overcome to enable sustainable practice. That was the consensus of thoracic surgeons, who gathered at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba for their inaugural meeting and scientific conference – the first of its kind.
Some of the identified challenges to increasing cardiothoracic surgical activity are- limitations in manpower development, infrastructure, laboratory support, local availability of consumables, cost of surgery, funding mechanisms for surgery, multiple models for development of cardiac surgery, decentralisation of efforts and lack of outcome data. Data collection and reporting of results must be started to enable development of more evidence-based practice, the surgeons said.
Speaking at the inaugural meeting of their newly launched Nigerian branch of Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons (ACTSON), with the theme: Advancing cardiothoracic surgical practice in Nigeria, the surgeons in the field of cardiovascular and thoracic medicine also raised the alarm over poor access to treatment and services in Nigeria, lamenting that only two per cent have access to treatment in foreign lands while 98 percent are trapped in the system and die.
As a result, more Nigerians are dying from Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) – a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels. The four main types of CVDs are cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. Among others are coronary heart disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle which often causes heart attacks, and cerebrovascular disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain, often leading to strokes.
Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the University of Enugu Teaching Hospital, Prof. Martin Aghaji said a study showed that Nigeria is in dire need of improved cardiothoracic practice and survival rates, as he added, “I can tell you from our study that only two percent of the patients go abroad and 98 percent sit here and die. So there is need for us to galvanise and bring together the surgeons and cardiologists so that we can tackle these problems.”
In his lecture entitled: Advancing Cardiothoracic Surgical Practice in Nigeria, Aghaji pointed out that aside the identified problems, medical errors is also a problem and noted that in order to forestall medical errors, using checklist before surgery can reduce medical errors by 35 percent deaths.
“Our coming together under this umbrella is for practitioners to prevent medical errors. If somebody has a heart attack there is a protocol for handling that. We want to unify how patients are handled because it saves life. If you don’t do that, you find out that patients are handled haphazardly and there is a lot of loss of lives.”
The President of ACTSON, Dr. Bode Falase, a Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, said ACTSON seeks to ensure a sharp reduction in errors arising from wrong diagnosis, tests, treatments; transfusion and improve survival rates. He admitted an increase in cardiac-related diseases.
Throwing light on the cardiac conditions, the Secretary-General of ACTSON, Dr. Augustine Olugbemi, said cardiovascular diseases are into two categories and some are congenital while some are acquired from lifestyles.
Olugbemi who is also a Consultant Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon, LUTH encouraged Nigerians to see a doctor regularly, “For prevention, quit smoking and reduce alcohol as much as you can. Do regular exercises and maintain healthy weight. If you have consistent cough, don’t say it is pneumonia, so see a doctor. It can be controlled with lifestyle modification.”
Also in his lecture tagged: Healthcare Financing in Cardiac Surgery in Nigeria, former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), and Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Dr. Femi Thomas, blamed the poor survival rates of cardiac patients on inability to pay for healthcare.
He urged the government to ensure universal coverage in the NHIS by making it compulsory, “NHIS needs to be re-energised, restructured, reviewed, and made more functional while the scheme itself should be purely a regulatory body,” he added.
By: Oyeyemi Gbenga-Mustapha
The Nation News
