- Medical Expert, Onyemekeihia Raises Alarm
- Says 12.8 Percent Admitted Patients Affected
BY EDNA EMENI
THE Medical Director and Chief Executive Officer of Mount Horeb Clinic and Dialysis Centre, located in Warri, Delta State, Dr. Raph Onyemekeihia has raised the alarm on the rise in kidney failure, revealing that, “about 12.8 percent of all admitted medical patients in Nigeria’s health facilities are affected.
Disclosing this to The Pointer in an executive interview, Dr. Onyemekeihia, who is in-charge of the clinic – the first private Dialysis Center in Delta State, and the first private centre to perform a successful kidney transplant in the State, Bayelsa and part of Edo States, attributed the cause of the rise to hypertension, diabetes, fake drugs consumption, rejection of medical diagnosis, abuse of pain killers, herbal mixtures, HIV, and environmental factors.
In order to put the rise in check, he called for urgent and sincere intervention of government, corporate organisations and individuals. “Private health facilities in the country must be encouraged, and well-equipped to cope with the challenge of kidney disease/transplant”, he added.
Most transplants in Nigeria, he disclosed, were done in private health institutions or centers because they tend to have more administrative flexibility and lesser bottlenecks.
“It is difficult to sponsor kidney transplantation personally. Most patients cannot afford it, as the average cost of a transplant is about N35 to N40 million. This is a huge financial resource.
“Government should, therefore, sponsor patients or subsidize part of the cost, like developed foreign countries do, through health Insurance Systems, because Kidney transplant is the permanent cure for kidney failure”, Dr. Onyemekeihia said.
While positing that, in order to curb the alarming rise in kidney failure in the country, he advocated that government must sponsor trainings to help confront what he called, “the monster” ravaging the country-kidney failures. “We need more experts, more Nephrologists, more transplant surgeons, and more trained manpower”, he added.
Reaffirming the crucial role of private clinics in salvaging the situation in the country, Dr. Onyemekeihia called on the government to urgently support their efforts/operations, adding that kidney transplant is doable in Nigeria, and very successfully too, as it has been done and proven in Mount Horeb Clinic and Dialysis Centre, Warri.
