The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Surgeon

  • How doctors can avoid litigation, by surgeon

    How doctors can avoid litigation, by surgeon

    A senior lecturer at the College of Medical Sciences of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof Clement Osime, has advised surgeons to be professional in doing their jobs. If doctors abide by professional ethics, he said, they would be protected from committing medical errors that could lead to litigation.

    Osime, a professor of Surgical Oncology, was delivering the 164th inaugural lecture of the institution last Thursday. Titled: Medicine, law and ethics: Is there a meeting point and the role of the surgeon, the event held at the Akin Deko Auditorium.

    Osime said the era of “doctor knows it all” had gone, explaining that patients were becoming aware of their rights in seeking healthcare. He said the rising cases of medical negligence by surgeons were disturbing, noting that several medical practitioners had been charged to court for professional errors.

    The surgeon said: “Many doctors have made fatal errors in diagnosing duodenal cancer, which is presented as acute appendicitis. Most patients are taken to the theatre and operated for appendicitis. Months later, the symptoms reappear. While some lucky patients survive, others die before coming back for surgery. This shows there is need for surgeons to understand the principle of good diagnosis before surgeries are done.”

    Osime also blamed patients for tardiness in seeking medical attention, saying many prefer to approach miracle centres to seek cure for ailments that required medical expertise. The lecturer called for strict sanctions against pastors who deceive patients in need of medical attention.

    He added: “We recently diagnosed a lady of breast cancer. She was afraid of losing her breast and rejected the result. She approached her pastor to seek spiritual healing and the pastor told her she should not go for medical examination again. Months later, she walked the hospital and by that time, the cancerous cells had spread to the other breast. There was nothing we could do.”

    Noting that breast cancer was not a death sentence, Osime advised women to always examine their breast and go for early treatment to survive the disease. He called for more awareness on breast cancer, immediate passage of National Health Insurance Bill, alternative dispute resolution mechanism and efficiency of professional guideline for medical practitioners.

    Earlier in his address, the Vice-Chancellor (VC), Prof Faraday Orumwense, who chaired the ceremony, hailed Osime for “scholarly exercise”. He said the lecture was timely, considering the rising litigations against doctors.

    The VC added: “We would submit the recommendations of this lecture to the appropriate quarters and I encourage members of the audience to take the message far and wide. We should spread the message like harmattan fire.”

  • Surgeon seeks improved health sector 

    Surgeon seeks improved health sector 

    A renowned surgeon at University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozallla, Enugu State Prof. Arthur Ikeme has said that unless health sector funding improves, the Millennium Development Goals will never be achieved.

    Speaking after receiving the 2015 Gold Merit Award of the Rotary Club of Enugu, Prof. Ikeme of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology observed that due to poor funding, managers of most government hospitals in the country lack modern facilities and do not run the hospitals effectively.

    He stated that apart from inadequate medical equipment, hospital administrators have no funds to meet their financial obligations to staff and medical personnel, giving rise to incessant industrial actions by labour unions.

    He said, “Nigerians will save the huge foreign exchange they spend travelling abroad to access care if our health institutions are properly equipped and the medical personnel well motivated with improved incentives”.

    The medical practitioner, who is also a senior lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC), also identified multiple taxation and hostile economic environment as some of the factors stifling private sector investment in the sector.

    He called on government to waive import duties on the importation of key medical equipment needed in hospitals.

    Famous economist, Prof. Ukwu I. Ukwu, chairman of the medical and Dental Council of Nigeria Prof. Jonathan Azubuike, Dr. Izuchukwu Okam of UNTH, former club presidents, chief Vincent Odo, Mr. Peter Umeano, Lady Clair Asogwa, current president, Mr. Daniel Ukwu and former chairman of Awgu Local government area in Enugu state, chief. Uche Cyril Anioke were among dignitaries who attended the event.

    Also present at the occasion were the former provost, College of Medicine, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, Prof. Nene Obianyo, Chief Medical Director of St. Mary’s Hospital Enugu, Dr. Dan Ajawara, secondary school students, former president Rotary club of New Haven, Dr. Eddy Ndibuagu, as well as members of the Prof. Arthur Ikeme’s family from Oraukwu, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State.

     

  • Surgeon’s error turned me into blind man — Ex-columnist Falodun

    Surgeon’s error turned me into blind man — Ex-columnist Falodun

    Since a surgeon committed an error while carrying out an operation on his eye and caused him to go blind in 1995, things have not remained the same for Oluwole Falodun, a former journalist and public relations practitioner who wrote the popular Waka about column in the Lagos Weekend newspaper in the 1970s. HANNAH OJO writes on the travails of the 72-year-old man who once dominated public activism but now lives without a wife while his children have all gone to pursue their dreams.

    Good morning. God bless you,” his deep voice echoes through the phone. Meeting him in person, there is no doubt that Pa Oluwole Falodun, the man who wrote Waka about, a popular column in the defunct Lagos Weekend, a publication on the stable of the Daily Times of yore, is a big fish who blindness has forced to dwell in a small pond.

    He sits at his Lagos home clad in simple house clothing. For an octogenarian who would be 73 by November, his physique can be adjudged decent. Welcoming the reporter with consummate familiarity, Falodun directs her to take a big brown envelope under the centre table in the living room. Famous Christ’s School Ado-Ekiti and the London School of Journalism, appears to be burrowed in loneliness. For a man who once moved the top men of the society and nursed his own dreams, it is understandable that the cost of blindness will come in unquantifiable folds.

    The situation has put a strain on his family.  “It is a pity things are not the best they could be, but I do not want to say things about my family on the pages of newspapers. My family is still my family,” he submitted.

    Speaking on the reaction of his children to the incident, the former secretary of the Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN)  said the children played their various parts within the limit of their resources. Since the scholarship he requested from the government didn’t sail through, he said the children went through thick and thin depending on family and friends for their education.

    Down and virtually out, it is not unexpected that some friends would turn their noses at him. The old man says he is not out to criticise anybody, adding that he has left friends who failed his expectations to their conscience.

    He said: “Even if we talk about the loss from now till tomorrow morning, 25 pages of a newspaper cannot restore my sight. All the money in the CNB cannot restore my sight.  I am not the greedy type. What I want is my rights. If the government was careless with the surgery on my eyes, it is only proper that somebody should stand on his feet and repay the sorrow that I am going through,” he averred.

    According to him, losing his sight has brought him closer to God. He appears to now see things through the window of his soul as he revealed that God has been revealing things to him, including those of national significance.

    On survival and his basic needs, Falodun says the good God who feeds the birds of the sky has been sustaining him. He has benefited from the good deeds of people such as Chief Micheal Adeojo of Elizade Motors fame, who gave him a car in 2005. He also mentioned Venerable L. L. Esho, Mr. Joko Okupe, Venerable Okunuga and a retired vice admiral of the Nigerian navy in Ibadan among those catering for him from time to time.

    However, he lamented that some expectations are not forthcoming, pointing to members of the Full Business Gospel Men Fellowship, a group he said he associated with but had deserted him.

    With loneliness, he has also encountered depressing moments arising from people who tried to cheat him because he is blind.

    “So many people, even the so called men of God, still come here and try to cheat me. There was a priest who came to deliver a message from a bishop and lied about the time. I brought out my audio wristwatch and when he heard the time from my audio wrist watch, he didn’t know what to say. Several times, many people will come pretending to assist me, but to my surprise, they still go away with things from my kitchen”.

    He commended the effort of Salami Kazeem, a Muslim he said God has used to help him.

    “He takes me to places and runs errands for me. Despite being a Muslim, he drives me to church and sits down with me as far as Ilorin and Abeokuta. The time I had an opportunity to speak with Lai Muhammed (APC spokesman), he promised he would assist him on holy pilgrimage to Mecca, but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.”

    Pa Falodun reminisced on the activities that blindness has denied him, saying: “I miss my activities with the Full Gospel Businessmen International. I missed the activities of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations where I was delivering lectures and writing papers from time to time at the forum of the institute to the extent that I won a merit award for that.

    “But I thank God I don’t miss any church service. I am an Anglican to the core and I go to various Anglican Church services on any Sunday.”

    Falodun, who was press secretary of the Tribune Group, the youth wing of the UPN comprising people like Wole Awolowo, Toyin Adefuye, Oladipo Jimileyin and Yemi Osinbajo, the current Vice President of Nigeria, says he spends his time as a blind man praying and fasting.

    Although he has gone to the School for the Blind at Oshodi, Lagos to learn mobility, he cannot navigate outside his house because the street is not tarred.

    “I want to buy a computer with which I will be able to do my write-ups again. It will cost nothing less than half a million naira because it will come with a software that will translate what I say. I do not want to learn brail because if I had that computer, what God has deposited in my brain could be put in black and white. Those are the areas where things are more challenging to me,” he stated.

    Speaking on his expectations from the new government of Akinwunmi Ambode in Lagos State, which he said has already reached out to him, Falodun said he has sent the list of his needs, saying he is confident of a positive reaction.

    Looking through the pictures of his heyday, Falodun was always dressed in impeccable suits, most of which he said were sourced from his travels outside the country. Agreeing with the reporter’s observation that he must have been a restless person in his youth, Falodun said he couldn’t see himself doing nothing at any particular time.

    He said: “I was a founding member of the NFA (Nigeria football association) supporters’ club with people like the late Ishola Folorunsho and M. O. Koyiki. I was the public relations manager of Boys Scout of Nigeria. All those were voluntary activities. While people went to the club to drink and do other things, I spent all my time in voluntary activities.

    “During the Nigerian civil war, I was a member of the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps, who were manning the streets at night and creating awareness that the country was at war.”

    Falodun, who is still active in the Boys and Girls Brigade of the Anglican Church, admonished people never to render themselves incommunicado.  “I do not want to envisage a situation where somebody will place a request with Jesus Christ and He will file it KIV, which civil servants call Keep in View. There’s not much human beings can do. God will do what He will do at his own appointed time,” he concluded.

     

  • First organ transplant surgeon dies

    First organ transplant surgeon dies

    Dr. Joseph Murray, the surgeon who performed the world’s first successful human organ transplant, has died.

    He was 93.

    BBC says the Nobel Prize winner passed away at the same Boston Hospital where, almost six decades ago, he performed the surgery that would transform medicine.

    In December 1954, Dr. Murray made history when he transplanted a kidney between identical twins.

    He learned his craft during World War II, treating badly burnt soldiers.

    By performing skin grafts on troops, he realised the biggest obstacle in the procedure was the immune system’s rejection of foreign tissue.

    Working at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, he and colleagues managed to successfully transplant kidneys on dogs.

    Using the new surgical techniques, he took the healthy kidney of 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and transplanted it into his identical twin, Richard, who had kidney failure. Richard lived another eight years.

    In 1962, with the arrival of drugs to suppress the immune response, he completed the first successful organ transplant from an unrelated donor.

    His work led to hundreds of thousands of transplants in America alone and sparked an ongoing ethical debate.

    Dr. Murray was a deeply religious man. He told the Harvard University Gazette in 2001: “Work is a prayer. And I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator.”