A child health expert, Professor Felix Akinbami, says there is a need for more innovative approaches to urgently solve Nigeria’s perennial child health challenges
Akinbami, in a guest lecture themed “Paediatrics at 60: A Journey Across Terrains” to mark the 60th-anniversary celebration of the Department of Paediatrics, College of Medicine/ University College Hospital, Ibadan, said paediatricians needed to come up with cutting-edge research to reduce Nigeria’s child mortality and improve survival rates.
Akinbami, a professor of paediatric gastroenterology at the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, stated that a challenge to this is that the brightest minds poised to conduct translational and lifesaving innovation research that can be scaled up in the community where the impart will be most felt had left Nigeria.
According to him, the practice of child health is faced with brain drain and resident staff attrition, high patient load to care provider ratio, workplace stress and health breakdown, frequent transfer of experienced nurses from paediatrics and dwindling funding for and research allocation to child health
“It is no secret that the allocation of funds to health in Nigeria is less than ideal. It is however exacerbated by significantly reduced funding for child health and paediatric care in many teaching hospitals.
“This out-of-the-ordinary skewness in funding and budgeting reflects the false belief that paediatrics does not generate revenue for the hospital. To the best of my knowledge, paediatric patients account for at least a quarter of all patients seen in UCH, Ibadan and probably all other teaching hospitals.”
Professor Akinbami, however, declared that at least one in every five paediatricians in Nigeria had received training at some point from the 60-year-old Department of Paediatrics at the UCH, Ibadan.
The department, he said, had expanded its disciplines to 12 sub-specialities and remained the only option for children in Ibadan who require specialised care.
In his opinion, better child health in Nigeria requires philanthropists’ funding support, established trusts and foundations, advocacy for further rebates and discounts on paediatric hospital charges and hospitals employing and retaining paediatric nurses. Also, hospital management needs to improve the use of data generated by patients.
Earlier, Head of the paediatric department, Dr Adanze Asinobi, said that the department, since its inception, had trained 8,500 medical students, 400 paediatricians and other cadres of healthcare staff, as well as attended to 15,000 children per annum in its 12 subspecialties.
In his remarks, UCH’s Chief Medical Director, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, represented by Dr Abiodun Adeoyo said the Federal government needed to make the employment of health workers in the country seamless to ensure that those leaving due to brain drain can be replaced immediately.
“Consider a situation you are asking for 630 and you are approved to employ 250, including 85 resident doctors; you will not have enough human capacity to treat the patients. We will only do our best in the circumstances we find ourselves.”
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