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In recognition of the rising cases of kidney and kidney related diseases world-wide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was compelled to designate a day as the World Kidney Day to draw world attention to this not-so new killer ailment. The day was March 8 this year. Diet, improper use of some drugs especially strong analgesics and other factors are said to be responsible for the ravages of this disease.
Even as we are notorious for not having reliable statistics on such matters, it is easy to see that incidences of the disease are becoming more rampant in Nigeria. Quite often these days, we are presented on TV with pathetic cases of poor Nigerians who solicit assistance from compassionate people to be able to go for kidney transplant in India or South Africa, or for dialysis here at home. It costs anything between six and nine million naira to go for a transplant in those two countries and about 75,000 a month to do dialysis here in some of our hospitals. Incidentally, our President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, is known to suffer from this disease. In March last year in the heat of his campaign for the Presidency, he took ill from this disease and had to be flown in an air ambulance to a German hospital to receive urgent medical attention. Last week, the President was once again rushed to Germany, certainly to receive treatment for an indisposition that may not be unconnected with this disease. As in March last year when concern and anxiety rent the air, the President’s trip last week created palpable tension in the country. It not only created some disquiet on the political scene, it has also raised the issue of why our leaders who are in a position to do something about the provision of medical facilities and personnel at home here, seem not to see anything wrong in going abroad for medical care. What possible reasons account for the unwillingness of our leaders to provide hospitals to treat diseases, some of which even they themselves suffer from? Is it lack of money to build hospitals, buy equipment and hire personnel to man them? Is it lack of land space or is it lack of wisdom? Or has the World Bank or IMF advised that it is more economical for us to use our meagre resources to seek medical treatment abroad? Apart from India and South Africa, Nigerians troop to Saudi-Arabia and Egypt in large numbers almost every day now for medical treatment. By some account, the exodus to Egypt is so massive these days that one Egyptian hospital is reported to have hired a Nigerian cook to provide Nigerian delicacies for the largely Nigerian clientele! The President of our country is a symbol of our nationhood. Each time Yar’Adua is rushed to Germany for treatment, it is a poignant symbol of our inability as a people to organise our affairs in a self-reliant manner. Each time Yar’Adua or our ‘lesser’ citizens go for treatment abroad, our nation is being indicted for foolishness. How can a country as blessed as Nigeria with plenty of petrol-dollars not have sense enough to use that money to build world-class hospitals to treat its ailing citizens? If we had a world-class kidney hospital here it would not only treat our President but also the poor masses who suffer from kidney disease who now go through the humiliation of begging public spirited people to assist them go abroad for treatment. Our governing elite seem to be in no mood to be the hippopotamus that assist a drowning man to swim across a bridgeless river. It is so sad. As he returns from his recent medical trip, we urge President Yar’Adua to begin TODAY, a policy that would ensure that we have good hospitals that would treat not only kidney problems but all other diseases. We do not require the knowledge of rocket science to have good medicare facilities. All we need is good sense and the will to do it.
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