Diseases common in children in the 50s, 60s have re-emerged, don says

A paediatrician, Professor Samuel Omokhodion, has expressed concern that diseases like kwashiorkor, marasmus and infectious diseases that caused ill-health and deaths in children back in the 1950s and early 1960s are re-emerging in the children’s emergency units of many Nigeria’s hospitals.

He declared that more commonly, new babies are also dying from prenatal anaphylaxis, neonatal jaundice, prematurity and septicemia.

Professor Omokhodion spoke at the 60th anniversary celebration of the Department of Paediatrics of the University College Hospital (UCH), its documentary and book launch, on the theme ‘Six Decades of Paediatrics Practice, Research, and Training at Ibadan.’

According to the don, “all they were suffering from was hunger and those of them that have preventable diseases that are largely infectious can be resolved with the right will to pursue the right policies.

“It is not as if there are no people who know the right things to do, but the budgetary allocation to health is consistently less than three percent of the GDP for a population that is more than 200 million, with the paediatric age constituting almost half of that population.

“As a nation, we have resources to be able to put in place facilities that will reduce these gruesome health statistics that we keep seeing every year – poor maternal, prenatal, neonatal, infant, and under-five mortality rates.”

He declared that Nigeria looking after its children and getting them to survive and grow well would guarantee the country a future, stating that investing in them is investing in the future of the country.

Professor Omokhodion decried the dearth of doctors for specialist training in paediatrics due to the emigration of doctors out of the country with the existing vacancies in the hospitals not filled, as the number of children being admitted to the hospitals keeps increasing.

Head of Paediatrics Department, Dr Adanze Asinobi, said in its first three decades, the department produced three of every five paediatricians trained in Nigeria and the West African sub-region, adding that it stood out as one of the leading departments in the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and has always been voted as the best by the University of Ibadan Medical Students Association.

On her part, Provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Professor Olayinka Omigbodun, called for synergy between those working on maternal and child health care for better productivity.

In separate goodwill messages, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Kayode Adebowale and the Chief Medical Director of UCH, Ibadan, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, who were both represented, commended the Department of Paediatrics for its efforts in the health sector in the past 60 years, while calling for more contributions in the years ahead.

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