Despite Nigeria’s increasing life expectancy, the Centre for Palliative Care Nigeria (CCPN) said that the nation still lacks enough hands to care for its elderly and those that cannot self-care.
CCPN’s Director of Training, Professor Simbo Amanoboadu, speaking at the opening of training on care giving by CCPN in collaboration with Global Partners in Care, USA said this dearth had made them have a poor quality of life.
Amanoboadu said in many communities, care is rendered mostly by young people after school hours, and leaving out their other needs such as the task of moving, engaging them mentally and recognising and attending to their various moods.
According to her, they required totality of care, adding “it is not only about feeding them, it is also about giving quality to their lives. Communication to engage them mentally, sitting them outside for fresh air, ensuring palatable and non-smelling environment, are all important.”
She declared, “we appreciated them. We will really like to improve their skills in doing this, including training them to do it in the scientific mode without they themselves getting injured in doing this as well.”
Professor Amanoboadu, who said CCPN was training 15 participants, including a pharmacist on caregiving, declared that this as an important aspect of palliative care, a holistic medicine to ensure care to a person with a serious illness or who cannot care for himself.
The expert said the need for palliative care has increased in Nigeria given the nation’s increasing aged population and number of persons with non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension.
“Ageing comes with various kinds of diseases; ageing is here with us with improved quality of lifestyles, so also some medical conditions. So, it is very important to do the training now.”
According to her, even elderly persons after a particular age need to be helped with some chores like cooking, adding although many people would never want their elderly relatives in homes, they still have no time to adequately care for them.
“So if you are engaging somebody to look after, be sure that the person is skilled and that is why we need to train more people to be able to care for them so that the affected can have good quality care too,” she concluded.