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Tag: Nurse

  • Nurse gets kudos for professionalism

    Nurse gets kudos for professionalism

    Oyo State-born health personnel, Michael Odedele has been hailed by his supervisor, Gregory Mikitarian.

    The supervisor said: “It’s rare to find someone who not only shows up, but shows others how it’s done. He is dependable, clinically sharp, and leads by example

    “In 2020, while the world was grappling with the first wave of COVID 19, Odedele was in the front lines at a nursing facility in United States, providing direct care to high risk elderly patients, many of who were isolated from their families and vulnerable to the virus”.

    Odedele said being a nurse is never just about medicine but about presence, culture, and service. “I carry Nigeria with me every time I walk into a room with a patient who needs help.

    “I remember those days. We didn’t have all answers, but we had patients who needed us — who were scared, alone, and at risk. Being a Nigerian nurse at that moment, for me, meant carrying the strength and values of home into a place of fear and transforming it into care,” said.

    Read Also: Nurses call off four-day-old strike

    Odedele has continued to expand his professional impact. He  delivers high quality nursing services in multiple settings, supporting patient care teams and taking on leadership responsibilities, such as mentoring junior staff, training on specialised procedures like ventilator and trach care, and assisting with quality improvement programmes aimed at reducing readmissions and improving long term outcomes.

    Odedele is preparing to pursue advanced research in geriatric and community health nursing. His focus is on addressing disparities in chronic illness management among the underserved population. He hopes to contribute to nursing literature, develop care models grounded in data, and serve as a bridge between frontline practice and evidence based innovation.

    “Being a nurse is never just about medicine,” Odedele says. “It’s about presence, culture, service. I carry Nigeria with me every time I walk into a room with a patient who needs help.”

    As the US continues to face healthcare workforce shortages, professionals like Odedele provide not only solutions — but stories of strength, leadership, and the transformative power of service.

  • Aunty Nurse, blurry vision, quantum energy

    Aunty Nurse, blurry vision, quantum energy

    Aunty  Nurse, as we all called Mrs Inemesit (Happiness) Ekanem was a simple Florence Nightingale from  Akwa Ibom State who made hospital visits somewhat unnecessary for many residents in her neighbourhood until she passed on two weeks ago.

      She lived at No. 12 Emmanuel Adekanmi Street, off Emmanuel bus-stop, Old Abeokuta Road, Oko-Oba, Agege, Lagos, where she ran a successful patent medicine store and offered some maternity clinic services for several years. Ironically, however, as the Yoruba say,  Alatise O  Mo Atise Ara Re (The fixer of  other persons’ problems has no remedy for his or hers!) And, so, the Good Samaritan Auntie Nurse, as we all knew her, gave way two weeks ago to a pain in the chest which had all the portent of heart failure.

    Auntie Nurse and I met about three years ago in my home, courtesy of Mr Michael Adenola who wanted me to speak to her about some quantum energy devices in which he was trading online. She was trading in them already through one of her childhood friends in Uyo, but was not obtaining robust business education and information.Thus, encouraged by our discussion, she sought to switch to Adenola’s group. I advised her against this, advising her not to deny her friend the fruit of her labour, and continued to give her all the support she required.  We interacted often soon after. My last engagement with her involved the pregnancy of a 15-year-old which the girl had concealed from her guardians until then. I sent her to Auntie Nurse to prove or disprove her innocence. Auntie Nurse placed some fingers on the abdomen of the girl, looked at her guardians straight in the face and pronounced: “FIVE MONTHS!”. To make assurance doubly sure or to exonerate the girl, she was sent immediately to a lab which confirmed “FIVE MONTHS!” . Auntie Nurse was well known for her primary health care services which had the hallmark of  A ta Ma Ta Se (right on the mark) that her home became something like a mini-hospital.

    Her sudden death from a seemingly innocuous or simple  condition as a chest pain was, therefore, a shocker to many of her clients, friends and neighbours.To doctors who look after the heart and the blood circulation system, however, the problem might have built up over many years and probably neglected or under-rated like many other health challenges.

    Before her passage through a health malaise from which she  had delivered many of her patients, Mrs Elizabeth Kafaru, doyen of Nigeria’s herbal medicine in her days, said this often  happened because health care givers were too busy helping other persons, that they hardly remembered their cases well enough. Am I not guilty as charged?

    All around me, men of my generation are complaining of such troublesome conditions as prostate inflammation, enlargement and cancer of the prostate gland and we are working always around and against them but I have done nothing beyond checking every morning the colour, volume and weight in a clean white drinking  glass,  ensuring there is no foaming and that nothing impedes a free flow! In matters of the heart health as well, my blood pressure checks are months apart, even if at 74 I should have graduated from a 110/70 blood pressure of many years under hectic work hours of 11a.m to  about 3a.m.

    Today, I am still content with the satisfaction of a 10,000 steps workout with my aides on some days with no complaints of a pepperish chest, palpitating or murmuring heart, breathlessness or shooting pains in the left arm, some of which may be signs that the heart needs some help. Irrespective of these credits in the ledger, however, I believe nothing should be left to chance, that we should see our doctors as frequently as they recommend we do. This cannot take anything away from our responsibility and right to be our own doctors since our bodies belong to us, anyway.

    WARNING SIGNS

    Every one can be his or her watch dog over his or her heart and the circulation system by observing some simple home checks, some of which are…

    TIREDNESS

    Many persons cannot climb a stair way or a foot bridge over a highway without easily becoming tired, breathing hard and rapidly feeling dizzy or experiencing palpitations of the heart.These may be signs of heart problems on the way or already established. However, these signs may be warnings about other problems such as low blood sugar, diabetes or high blood sugar or low blood pressure. Cough in the elderly could be due to congestive heart failure, adrenal gland weakness, fatigue, burnout, low blood count, anaemia, especially megaloblastic anaemia due to Vitamin B12 deficiency or even of a kidney or bone marrow challenge.

    METABOLIC SYNDROME…

    When the abdomen begins to bulge, a group of disorders known as the Metabolic Syndrome may be going on. This means the body is becoming de-energised, its functions are not running smoothly, the poorer metabolism is leaving backlogs of waste everywhere and these, as a syndrome, will create problem(s) someday, suddenly or progressively. Some of these problems may be hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, clotting blood, hardening blood vessels (arteriosclerosis), blockages in blood vessels (atherosclerosis), elevation of stress hormones in the blood, thickening of  the blood, venous insufficiency (incomplete out flow of blood from the blood capillaries and veins, damaged on return valves in the blood vessels, swelling and pitting in the feet, lower legs and so on).

     SWELLINGS

    These are sometimes confusing as they may be produced by weak or enlarged heart, or by de-energised and underperforming kidneys. A doctor often relies on expensive laboratory tests to sort out the culprit. Some rely on a simple question: Does the swelling disappear when the challenged person lies on a plane surface, raises the legs on a surface or  at the level of the hips or higher  or overnight when the patient goes to bed? Does the swelling fail to abate under these situations? If the swelling would not go away, the kidneys are probably the causes. If they go away under these conditions, the heart may have become too weak to pull back to itself the blood it once  pumped out, or there may be blockages of sorts on the way.  Additionally, non-return valves in the leg veins may have become too weak to prevent up flowing blood from falling back or certain organs, especially the liver, the kidneys, pancreases or spleen may be inhibiting blood flow in one or diverse ways. Sometimes, too, a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) may be at work. This is a blood clot in the deep vein. For this condition, doctors often prescribe blood thinners such as Hesperidin, Aspirin or Warfarin, which may cause minor or serious side effects or go down well with the patient. In Alternative Medicine, nutritional food supplements are employed. Notably, they include Cayenne, Nattokinese, Omega-3 fatty acid, Apple Cider Vinegar, Vitamin E( D-Alpha, not DL-Alpha, mixed Tocopherols and tocotrienols).

    Read Also: To nurse minds, not social cannibals

    ANGINA PECTORIS

    This is yet another sign of heart trouble. This is often an electric pain which may arise from the scapula or shoulder blade in the left arm and travel down the arm or abate somewhere on the way.This is a signal that the heart is not receiving enough blood, oxygen and energy to perform its task.This is often because the arteries which supply it with blood are blocked by fatty or other plaque or deposits, or that excess calcium under a regime of Magnesium deficiency had infiltrated and settled into the soft muscles of these arteries, hardening them.The arteries cannot in this condition dilate or widen enough for  blood to easily flow through  them. Tension is elevated in the vessel. Without adequate blood, oxygen, nutrient and energy supply, some of the muscle fibers of the heart may begin to die, causing the heart to enlarge in compensation until its reaches an elastic limit and it gives up. By now, many readers of this column should be aware of the popular prescriptions in Alternative Medicine for these conditions such  as Hawthorn Berries, Vitamin B1( Thiamine), Co-Enzyme Q10 or, better  still, Ubiquinol, Vitamin E, Beta Carotene, Garlic, Kyolic, Lecithin, Nattokinese, and Vitamin B-complex.

    DIABETES

    Many challenged persons do not always link it with hypertension which may cause heart disease and heart failure. When insulin cannot cross from the blood into the cell because  of the absence of Chromium in the diet due to the ingestion of refined carbohydrate  foods., this causes insulin resistance.  Insulin accumulation in the blood vessels, rather than in the cells, may stimulate the smooth muscles of the blood vessels to mushroom and overgrow upward, downward and sideways, reducing the lumen or blood flow space and  thereby making the blood vessels become Muscle Bound. This type of resistant hypertension may be more difficult to challenge, upset or offset.

    Like all of us as we age, Auntie Nurse may have gone through some of these developments in her heart and circulatory system without realising that something amiss was going on. Her diet may also not have favoured her health. How many of us as we age have eliminated bread( white or wheat), milk, poultry egg, margarine, butter, fries, red meat or beef, white flour foods, sugar in all forms and monosodium  Glutamate (MSG) – which are all causes of diabetes. I bounced them off more than 20 years ago! Goodbye, Auntie Nurse!

    CLOUDY VISION… CATERACT OR GLAUCOMA

    I AM still not surprised that most of my mails this month are about cloudy vision and that the writers are aged between 60-something years and over 80. I rejoice with the over 80s who still bounce about with eyes unprotected  in the scorching sun and heat. It means their vision may still be superb.  However, it would be better for them to protect these eyes which are not only old and prone to weakness but may easily succumb to oxidative pressure. Some of the  enquires were on three herbal eye drops which Ophthalmologist Professor, Mrs. Bukola Adefule-Oshitelu, had developed from  her interaction with Alternative Medicine  or  if you like, Nigeria Traditional Medicine (NTM) to make it indigenous.

    One of them is Garcinia Kola( Bitter Kola) eye drops which she developed to reduce high occular tension.  One of the enquirers reminds me of those days, long ago, when I thought there was no answer to this problem. His internal ocular pressure (IOP), was 24 in one  eye and 31 in the  another, a dangerous  swing towards optic nerves stress, damage and blindness when these nerves would do well on a 12-21mm Hg tension.   

    The second enquiry was in respect of Chanka Piedra, a multi-purpose herb which fights hypertension, gallbladder and kidney stones ( she strictly  recommended it for fighting  Cateract of the eye lense), germs, Staphylococcus aureus, elevated blood cholesterol levels, etc. Prof. Oshitelu offers the Chanka Piedra  eye drop specifically for Cateract.

    From her stable, also, comes Pinth, a popular Yoruba herb, for cateract. To them, I suggest inclusion of eye anti-oxidants such as Bibery, vitamins A,  C and E, Gingko biloba, Lions mane mushroom, magnesium, selenium,CoQ10 or Ubiquinol, Plasma tissue or cell salt, Beta carotene etc. Each of them has a good history to its name.  I will mention only a few. Calcium wreaks havoc in the body when there is not enough Magnesium to pair with excess of it. In the brain, it can cause a stroke through circulation blockage. In the blood vessels, excess calcium may cause hypertension. In the joints, the trouble may be arthritis when it “cements” bone structures and in the Spondylitis of spinal bones.

    This condition often ends up in the removal of damaged vertebrate bones, their replacement with plastic forms and a bent in the gait afterwards. In the eye, the lens, an otherwise gelatinous substance is hardened. Many sufferers of calcium havoc either are magnesium deficient or consume Cheap Calcium supplements such as Calcium carbonate, the class-room chalk, which is not well absorbed and utilised. The eye drops for glaucoma are sometimes Calcium Blockers, to prevent free calcium from infiltrating and hardening delicate structures of the eye.

    Alternative Medicine offers Magnesium to dislodge calcium’s insolence in the eyes and elsewhere. That is what Milk of Magnesia ( a Magnesium remedy, does in the intestine to unlock the Calcium lockdown of nerves which cause constipation and encourage intestinal flow)! While CoQ10 or Ubiquinol may energise the eye and Lutein, Zezanthin and Astazanthin from Carotenoids may protect them against damage by the blue spectrum of sunlight, lion’s mane mushroom is always very exciting to me. It was discovered by a female Italian doctor during Second World War to help in the repair and revival of damaged or mangled nerves.  I followed her till we lost touch after she was 103 years old, still writing and presenting academic papers. This remedy is used orally. I eagerly look forward to when eye drops of its extracts will be developed for damaged or mangled optic nerves. There is cheering news from  Japan where persons said to have been medically certified blind for upward of 10 years can now see  as clearly as though nothing happened to their vision. I believe we are moving from the realms of bone marrow surgery and transplant to newer possibilities.

    One of the new realms may be quantum energy health which this column reported two weeks ago (April 11, 2024) on the Nigerian market. It was a good opportunity for me to replace my Chymall quantum eye glasses, the frame of which had broken, with that of Double Plus, and water my eyes with a new Quantum energy water bottle spray. The cost is not a laughing matter for a purse such as mine at this time, but I believe it is worth it. Not only does it energise the eyes, promoting circulation, the lens blocks damaging rays of the sun to which many persons expose their eyes and against which they inadequately protect them with only darkened lens. I suggest that any-one who spends long hours watching television or working with cell phones or laptops endeavour to protect the eyes with quantum energy  eye glasses.

    QUANTUM ENERGY ENERGY HEALTH RESOURCES

    The following responds to that column on Quantum  health of April 11, 2024 which was entitled: Quantum Energy Health Market: Double Plus Tracks Chymall came from an engineer in Port Harcourt. He says:  

    “Well done, dear brother.

     ‘‘Though very long discourse, well-loaded with very useful information.

    ‘‘I’m very happy and proud to be associated with you, dear brother.

    ‘‘The knowledge of Quantum energy is the key to managing almost if not all health related issues.

    ‘‘Thanks immensely once again for this very illuminating discourse.

    ‘‘Finally, dear brother, could you please give your final update on ‘Double Plus’?

    I hugely appreciate your work, brother.

    Emma Nwandu.”

    SOME DETAILS

    Thanks, Sir, for following this column.

    Surely, the details will be provided as the possibilities unfold. For example, the Quantum energy eye glasses may help the brain as well. They are in the region of the sixth chakra and the brain is in the seventh, the last of the energy vortexes of the animating soul or the Astral body, going by the traditional Asian energy conception of medicine. I have heard some people say too much energy in the brain causes  conditions such  as insomnia, depression or possession. Therefore, it may sound ridiculous to suggest quantum energy for clearing this energy mess.The picture of such a therapy may get clearer and cleaner, however, in the differentiation of dirty energy from clean energy. Dirty energy suppresses normal brain function, creating dysfunction while clean energy establishes natural functions. Therefore, quantum energy will not necessarily stoke the fire of dirty  energy challenges in the brain.

    However, the opposite may become the case when the cause of wakeful energy is tracked to impurities which the brain cannot excrete, leading to poor blood circulation and brain chemistry imbalances. These may even block brain capacity to convert Serotonin, day-time neurotransmitter, to Melatonin, night time and sleep time neurotransmitter. I have kept awake to 3am to conclude  this column and will head to bed right away and…to dream land!

  • To nurse minds, not social cannibals

    To nurse minds, not social cannibals

    Nigerians are a curious breed. Think of us as the proverbial coastal dwellers dying of thirst. We complain of parched tongues, but every day, we defecate in our fresh springs and struggle to slake our thirst with poisonous waters from abroad.

    Beyond metaphor, Nigeria must be rescued from cognitive dissonance; the mental racket that triggers the Nigerian lust to relocate abroad and sustains it.

    Ultimately, it poisons our wellsprings of civilisation and knowledge: culture, family and academia. This corruptive mentality pervades the country’s educational and cultural institutions, aggravating the brain drain that robs Nigeria of the allegiance and contributions of promising citizenry.

    The multiple failures that beset the country, from the bungled economy to our subversive partisanship, to our lack of universal health care, to protracted terrorism, and the neocolonialist afflictions of our politics and media, can be adduced to the institutions that produce and sustain our political elite.

    Our local schools and even the elite schools most Nigerians throng abroad, hardly teach students to question and think. They focus instead on creating legions of effective systems managers via standardised tests and passive submission to authority.

    Eventually, when the systems fail the managers, they scurry out of the country in search of greener pastures abroad. When the going gets tough, they simply pack up and leave.

    The responsibility for the collapse of the Nigerian economy runs from the corridors of power, through the media soapbox to the lecture theatres of the academia; it pervades our banking halls, the comatose industry and the random trade zones of municipal sidewalks.

    Scholarship is crucial to the rejuvenation of our comatose state thus Nigeria must furnish an educational system that facilitates fearless intellectual inquiry; one that is constructively critical of authority, fiercely independent, and selfless.

    We must quit organising learning around minutely specialised disciplines, tapered solutions, and rigid structures designed to produce predetermined answers. As the government fixates on science education, it must equally furnish our arts and humanities.

    Nigeria must rejig her cultural foundations and ethical complex – and this is achievable through a partnership between the government and the arts & humanities. The result of such an endeavour would excite a social re-engineering built on character mending and economic restoration in consonance with our peculiar strengths and weaknesses.

    Restoring our cultural dominance would facilitate easier salvage of our society, particularly the engine wheels of our industrial complex. China, Japan, Germany, Indonesia, Sweden, among others, attained progress by founding their governance on a cultural experience indigenous to them.

    The wild pursuit of materialism renders large segments of our business and political elite addicted to mindless acquisition of ill-gotten wealth. Thus the ceaseless cases of corruption in public office. The lives of several culprits are funded by stolen money and beastly monopolies facilitated by heinous social and political contracts.

    On the flip side of the equation, the working class diminishes and struggles to maintain membership in the informal social caste imposed upon it by a raptorial ruling class.

    The general run of the masses supposedly dissents but many do so without any real awareness of the actuality of forms that define their existence. Plato’s allegory of the cave was meant to explain this. In the allegory, he likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. Plato’s allegory speaks to our individual and collective fate as a nation.

    For Socrates, all virtues were forms of knowledge thus to train someone to manage a business account for Price Water Cooper, for instance, is to educate him or her in skill. To train them to debate the ethics of a business venture is to educate them on values and morals. A culture that disregards the vital interplay between morality and power, writes Hedges, condemns itself to death.

    Such existential truths are scorned by the modern fortune hunter. And the disconnect subsists across professions, government, and academia. Nigerian economists, for instance, chant elaborate theoretical models yet know little of how their fancy, soulless economics impact rural poetry and suburban lives.

    Our educational and social systems must quit churning out such products of a cultural void, casualties of a system that produces graduates who have been taught to cheat the system and applaud theft as a shrewd corporate strategy.

    Read Also:Senator Adeola organises ICT training for journalists, doctors, nurses, others

    The true purpose of education must be to make minds, not social cannibals. Education must furnish us with patriots capable of leading Nigeria’s charge back to rebirth.

    A recourse to educational foundations, in the light of Arnold’s 1869 treatise, could be in Nigeria’s best interest. This is attainable by conscious endeavour. President Bola Tinubu could lay the foundation for such a monument by increasing Nigeria’s education budget to 18 per cent or thereabouts, from the disgraceful fraction – usually less than seven per cent – budgeted over the years.

    The foundations of scholarship and knowledge must be reconstructed to guarantee more progressive responses to internal problems of social advancement: problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true value of life.

    Our quest for effective public governance can only be realised through the guidance of skilled thinkers, and a synergy between a public service that works and a humane corporate business sector.

    Nigeria could take a cue from Finland’s educational system. The transformation of the Finnish education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardised test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world.

    Three years later, they led in math. By 2006, Finland was first out of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide.

    There are no mandated standardised tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. School managers at all levels are educators, not businessmen or politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators.

    The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education irrespective of his or her descent. The differences between the weakest and strongest students in Finland are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

    True knowledge essentially translates to being an emissary of truth, hope, superior culture and progress. It is never simply to teach bread-winning, furnish teachers for the public schools or vocation for the unemployed. It should above all, be an appendage of that fine adjustment between what Du Bois calls reality and the flourishing knowledge of life. An improvement of civilisation and solution to its seemingly intractable problems.

    The end product of such an educational process would be less likely to abscond in the face of odds because he or she must have learnt to courageously vie for truth and progress, not for vulgar repute or profit.

  • Average nurse earns N135,000 monthly, says Nursing Council registrar

    Average nurse earns N135,000 monthly, says Nursing Council registrar

    An average nurse working at the local government, state, or national level gets a monthly salary of about N135,000, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) Registrar, Faruk Abubakar, has said.

    Abubakar said some nurses get up to N200,000 monthly salary, depending on where they work.

    The NMCN registrar said this while appearing on Channels Television’s “Morning Brief” monitored by The Nation.

    Abubakar was reacting to the controversy trailing nurses’ certificate verification.

    Some nurses, on Monday, protested in Abuja and Lagos offices of the NMCN against certificate verification.

    They urged the council to address concerns on nurses’ welfare, salary scale, staff shortages, and other rights.

    Read Also: Food inflation: FG to form commodity board to fight price volatility

    The NMCN, in its revised guidelines, introduced stringent requirements for certificate verification from foreign nursing boards, including two years of post-qualification experience, which has exacerbated the nurses’ discontent.

    Abubakar said the NMCN was not responsible for the determination of numerations of nurses in Nigeria.

    The NMCN registrar said such matters were handled by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives meant to improve the welfare of the nurses.

    He said: “The issue of remuneration is not within the NMCN; it is the responsibility of the honourable minister of the Ministry of Health. I want to make this clear to you. A few weeks ago, the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) paid a courtesy visit to the honourable minister. He has constituted a committee where all issues raised by the national association, including the welfare that you are talking about (will be addressed)…”

  • Police arrest doctor, nurse over patient’s death  

    Ogun State Police Command has arrested a doctor, Olawale Raji, and a nurse, Olusegun Funmilayo, for carrying out an abortion, which allegedly led to the death of Aminat Iyanda Atisola.

    The suspects were alleged to have performed an abortion on the victim in her home.

    She was said to be carrying a two-month-old pregnancy.

    The 35-year-old woman allegedly died of complications.

    Police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi said yesterday in a statement the arrest followed a complaint by the victim’s sister, Bose Kazeem, of Ireakari, Atan-Ota, Ogun State.

    He said Bose reported that her deceased sister, who was two months pregnant, contracted the suspects for abortion.

    Oyeyemi alleged the suspects, who worked in a private hospital, carried out the abortion at the deceased’s home, but complications led to the woman’s death.

    “Trouble started when the deceased had complications after the abortion. She was taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta, but died on the way.

    “On receiving the report, the Divisional Police Officer, Onipanu Division, Sangobiyi Johnson, led his team of detectives to the scene where the suspects were arrested.

    “The body has been deposited at the General Hospital mortuary for post mortem,” he said.

    Oyeyemi said Police Commissioner Ahmed Iliyasu had directed that the suspects be transferred to the Homicide Section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for investigation and prosecution.

     

  • Doctor, nurse killed as Lassa fever returns

    Doctor, nurse killed as Lassa fever returns

    •Minister alerts on meningitis outbreak

    Ebonyi State government yesterday confirmed the death of a doctor and a nurse from a renewed Lassa fever outbreak in the state.

    Commissioner for Health Dr Daniel Onwuzurike spoke with reporters in Abakaliki. He noted that the deceased were working at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA).

    Onwuzurike said 12 samples had been collected and tested for possible detection with four testing positive to the dreaded disease.

    “Apart from the two confirmed deaths, we have not confirmed whether another doctor who worked in the hospital died of the disease as he was known to be diabetic.

    “He was being managed for blood-sugar derangement and has been on self-medication for malaria and typhoid fever before his death.

    “We will still confirm whether he died of Lassa fever and have also commenced the tracing of possible contacts of another suspected victim, a FETHA staff but a resident doctor at Afikpo,’’ he said.

    The commissioner said the contact-tracing for all suspected cases would end today, while the victims would be placed on the stipulated 21-day surveillance required for full confirmation.

    “It is, however, pertinent to note that the disease’s index case (suspected source) survived after being treated by doctors and has been discharged.

    “We urge indigenes of the state not to panic because the outbreak is an isolated one and not an epidemic as erroneously being speculated.

    “The state government has intervened tremendously by providing needed resources and logistics such as drugs needed for its treatment.

    “We have also contacted the federal ministry of health on the issue and it has pledged to immediately send needed commodities and manpower to complement our efforts,’’ he said.

    He debunked the insinuation that the samples and suspected patients have been referred to the General Hospital, Irrua in Edo as the South-East Virology Centre Abakaliki, constructed by the state government was functional.

    “We no longer experience panic or pandemonium in hospitals and in the state whenever such cases are reported because our virology centre effectively handles all reported cases.

    “There was also no panic among doctors, nurses and patients at FETHA on Sunday as we only fumigated its premises and evacuated patients, especially those at the accident and emergency section,’’ he said.

    Umezurike said the ministry was in collaboration with the FETHA management and relevant health stakeholders in the state, assuring the people that the situation was under control.

    “We will sustain our enlightenment campaigns over the media and relevant avenues on the need for people to maintain adequate hygiene and immediately report suspected cases to relevant authorities,’’ he said.

    Minister of Health Prof Isaac Adewole yesterday urged Nigerians to look out for suspected cases of meningitis.

    Prof Adewole spoke in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital at the weekend while sharing with the members of Network of Reproductive Health Journalists of Nigeria.

    The minister said:” That is why we are saying Nigerians should be on the lookout for it. It is so easy to treat. The vaccine is expensive.  When a case is detected we have an epidemic threshold then we quickly vaccinate people in the local governments, that is the best we can do for now.  When we are more prosperous then we can vaccinate everybody.

    “The conjugate is about $20 a vial, while the polyvalent is $3 a vial, so you can calculate what we need for the Nigeria population, and that is for just the vaccine, not including the syringes and other consumables; so, our best bet is to alert Nigerians that this is the season for meningitis and they should beware. We need to contain it.”

    He went on: “Meningitis is seasonal and this is the season and we are alerting Nigerians. The terrible outbreak we had in 2017 was because it was on for three months before we got to know. All of us know what meningitis is, it requires a lumbar puncture; look at the fluid cerebrospinal fluid. When you check and it is milky, then you know there is infection and you can culture it and begin treatment.

    “It is so easy to treat because the causative organism is responsive to antibiotics, but when we do not know that it is meningitis, we could treat malaria for three to five days, typhoid for one week then by the time we get to know, it would have spread. And it spreads like wildfire. As we attend to patients, 10 people can surround the infected person and that one patient would infect six or seven persons and it spreads like that. So, this is the season to alert people to look out and promptly report any suspicion to nearest health facility.

    “The government does not have enough money to vaccinate the whole country.”

     

     

     

     

  • Imo pastor, daughter stab nurse to death over cell phone battery

    Imo pastor, daughter stab nurse to death over cell phone battery

    A Pastor, Esom Jehovah and his 21-year-old daughter are currently cooling their feet in a Police cell after allegedly stabbing a trainee Nurse to death in Umuohiagu Autonomous Community of Ngor Okpala Local Government Area of Imo State.

    The cleric who is a presiding Pastor in one of the of Assemblies of God Churches in the community, according to eye witnesses beat up the victim to a pulp before his daughter stabbed her at the back with a long kitchen knife.

    The victim simply identified as Callista, from Okpanku Community in Enugu State died on the spot.

    Confirming the incident, a co-tenant to the Pastor and medical doctor in charge of Graceland Hospital, where the victim was working as a trainee Nurse, said that the victim died immediately after she was stabbed but was rushed to Holy Rosary Hospital, Emekuku in Owerri North Council Area of the state where she was confirmed dead and deposited in the hospital morgue.

    An eyewitness who preferred anonymity said that trouble started when the victim confronted the Pastor over a missing phone battery and charger.

    According to the source, “ a boy in the compound had given the deceased a phone battery and charger to assist him recharge it but Pastor Esom Jehovah’s first daughter stole the items which were later found in her custody five days after.

    “But the Pastor reacted angrily to the allegation against her daughter and beat up the deceased mercilessly before his daughter went and picked a kitchen knife and stuck it deep into her back while her father held her down.”

    The eye witness account revealed that the knife pierced through the back of the victim and came out through her chest and she bled to death.

    The Pastor and his wife are presently being held at Umuneke Ngor Divisional Police Station alongside another colleague of his who wanted to help him to escape while the daughter is still on the run.

    However, when contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Andrew Enwerem, said that he was yet to be officially briefed about the incident.

  • Nurse ‘kills’ husband

    Nurse ‘kills’ husband

    An auxiliary nurse, Mrs. Folashade Idoko, has allegedly stabbed her husband Lawrence, to death.

    The incident occurred around 11pm on Sunday at their 20, Kosoko Street, Ayetoro Lagos home in Oto-Awori Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Lagos.

    It was gathered that the deceased suffered years of domestic violence from his wife but kept quiet.

    The couple have two children – a three-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl.

    The woman was said to have pounced on the late Lawrence after accusing him of infidelity.

    Sources said the late Lawrence, a pipeline engineer with Greater Inspection and Industrial Services at Sango-Otta in Ogun State, was away on official assignment in Ikorodu for a week.

    She said: “He returned and his wife accused him of having extramarital affair. She stabbed him in the leg with a sharp knife. When his three-year-old son’s cries alerted neighbours, he had bled heavily. He died about an hour after he was rushed to the nearby New Ayetoro Medical Centre.”

    But Mrs. Idoko, a native of Kwara State, who is in police net, claimed that the knife fell on her husband by accident.

    She said she picked the knife to swear by it when she accused her husband of infidelity but in his effort to take it from her, it fell on his leg and left a deep cut.

    A neighbour, Mrs. Blessing Olokpobri, claimed that the woman was well known for her violent nature in the neighbourhood. “There was hardly a day they didn’t have a fight whenever he came around. Even on January 1, they fought. There was a time she went to drag him and stripped him naked from a beer parlour around here and beat up an elderly neighbour. There was even a time she sliced his ear lobes with a broken bottle and it had to be stitched,” she recounted.

    Their landlord, Chief Gani Akanni, who rushed the late Lawrence to hospital, said he issued the family quit notice following their incessant fights. But he changed his mind following other tenants’ intervention.

    Akanni, the Balogun of Ayetoro said: “There was a time I also took the woman to the police station because she vandalised my property after I locked up the tenants’ rooms for defaulting in payment of Lagos Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) bills. She went ahead to break the door. It is unfortunate because the husband is such a quiet and peaceful man.”

    Idoko’s aunt and rights activist Betty Abbah confirmed his death, describing it as unfortunate.

    According to her, it was unfortunate that spousal abuse is still prevalent and that it continues to take a toll on partners, either male or female.

    She said: “My nephew, like many men and women who die daily in violent relationships, would have been alive had they fled such deadly arrangements in the name of marriage.

    “We, the family, will ensure that justice is done, this is another young and promising life deliberately cut short and this wickedness will not go reprimanded.

    “We would have intervened one way or the other but he hid the entire violent scenario from us. Persons suffering domestic violence should always call out for help. It’s indeed a big tragedy for us.”

  • Nigerian men are romantic – GINNEFINE KANU

    Nigerian men are romantic – GINNEFINE KANU

    Nollywood actress, nurse and educationist, Ginnefine Kanu says that although she is Sierra Leonean, she is more drawn to Nigeria than any other country. Her school, Ecole Est Belle Acedemy recently held its first valedictory ceremony and OVWE MEDEME was there to witness the occasion. 

    HOW does it feel holding your first valedictory service?

    I thank God. I feel blessed. We are just nine months and we are already graduating some students. I think that is a milestone for us.

    Are you an educationist by training?

    Yes, I studied education, and I’m also s nurse and an actress. I studied in the USA after which I decided to come back to Nigeria to do my bit.

    What motivated you to come to Nigeria to do this despite the recession?

    The passion is my motivation. Also, I love kids. So that also motivated me to come. I didn’t think about the recession when I made the decision. I just decided that I will come here and do it.

    How have the nine months been?

    It’s been good. It’s been challenging, but I can’t complain.

    How do you pick your teachers?

    They are all well qualified. I don’t have anybody working for me who does not have a teacher’s degree. They all studied education, so none of them are here because they want to teach or because they see teaching as a way out.

    What is the overall vision of the school?

    The overall vision is for kids to look forward to going to school. That is the vision and I would say we are achieving that.

    Where do you intend to take this institution to?

    I intend taking it to the world. I want the world to know what we are doing here. I want it to grow, bigger than this. For now, we are a crèche, nursery and primary institution. And we would love to expand it to include a secondary institution. With time, we intend to do that. But I want this to grow first. If we have the resources, we would do it, but we want to nurture this first.

    Why did you choose Nigeria to establish this?

    Oh, I love Nigeria. I’m in love with Nigeria. I love the accent here. The pidgin mostly is what got me. I have been visiting Nigeria for the past 10 years so there is nothing new to me. I’m not used to my country as much as I’m used to Nigeria. I’m from Sierra Leone, but all my friends and all my ex-boyfriends are all from Nigeria.

    Are you married to a Nigerian?

    No comments.

    Which of our food is your favourite?

    I love Egusi soup.

    Do you know how to prepare it?

    I am actually a good cook, so yes, I can prepare it.

    How has your acting career been progressing?

    It’s been good. I’ve been acting since 2007, so it’s on and off. I first produced my movie with Desmond Elliot. It was titled Too Much. Also, I’ve been doing movies with Emem Isong. She produces movies with my brother. I’ve done Midnight Whisper featuring Ini Edo. I’ve also done several other movies. I just featured in a movie with Mercy Johnson and Saka. I also just produced one starring Oge Okoye, Chelsea Eze. I was also in 3 Wise Men, although I did just one scene with RMD.

    How do you cope with all of these activities?

    I don’t act in movies as a fulltime job. I only act when I have the time, so I balance it. I pay more attention here than I do to movies. I am also a pediatric nurse and I practice in the United States. I’m mostly here though. I only go back when we have a long vacation.

    How do your co-actors relate with you, especially given the fact that you are not a Nigerian?

    They don’t see me as a Sierra Leonean or anything like that. To them, I’m just another actor. They embrace me. And they have been wonderful to me. They try to be wonderful to me, especially when I’m acting in a movie

    Are you coming up with your own production?

    Yes, it is about relationships. It is titled Love, Friendship and Betrayal. Like I said, it stars Oge Okoye, Chelsea Eze, Nino and a host of others. It was shot here in Lagos.

    Why betrayal? Has any Nigerian man ever betrayed you?

    No, I’ve not been a victim, but generally it is about being married and facing betrayal from a spouse. It is about friendship gone wrong; betraying each other, even as girls.

    Is it a personal story?

    No it’s not. It’s just a story that we decided to make into a movie.

    How do you unwind?

    I cook. I love to cook. So cooking relaxes me. I don’t go out. So whenever I have a free time, I just stay home and cook.

    How often do you go back home for vacation?

    Sometimes when I’m on vacation, I go there.

    What similarities or differences do you see between Nigeria and Sierra Leone?

    It’s basically the same thing for me. They are welcoming, they are nice. Nigerians are a little bit sensitive.

    What about the men. How different are they?

    I’ve never dated any Sierra Leonean guy. I’ve dated mostly Nigerian men.

    Do you have anything against Sierra Leoneans?

    No I don’t. I’m just used to Nigerians.

    What are those qualities that draw you to Nigerians?

    They are so many. Nigerian men are romantic; they are nice and they respect women a lot. That’s what I’ve come to notice about them.

  • Nigerian Nurse bags global excellence award

    Nigerian Nurse bags global excellence award

    Abia State Malaria Program Manager, Uzoamaka Uja has received the Joanne Ruiz Achievement Award for Excellence in clinical practice in HIV.

    She was conferred with the award in Atlanta Georgia, USA early in November.

    Uja is globally recognized for her knowledge and skill in caring for people with HIV and their vulnerable families.

    The award is for  an outstanding nurse who is a source of pride to self, peers, patients, communities and colleagues and would most want to care for loved ones.

    Joanne Ruiz, was one of the first nurses in the United States to become infected with the HIV disease through occupational exposure.