A kidney specialist, Professor Adanze Asinobi, has called on the federal government to give kidney health first priority since, despite being overlooked, its burden is now on par with that of HIV, TB, and malaria.
Asinobi, in a valedictory lecture entitled “An Odyssey with the Kidney, the Purifying Organ: A Story of Doggedness, Grace and Triumph” at the University of Ibadan, said Nigeria cannot look away anymore given that Nigerian children still die because their families cannot afford care.
She said, “We must respond, not with pity but with policy. Not with sympathy but with structure. Not with momentary relief but with lasting reform. Kidney care is not a luxury. It is a human right. And the fact that Nigerian children still die because their families cannot afford life is a moral failure that should shake every heart.”
Professor Asinobi said the cost of kidney care in Nigeria is inequitable and separates the rich from the poor, not based on disease severity but on economic power.
“It is a tragedy when a child with the same diagnosis survives in one state because their parents can pay but die in another because of poverty or distance.”
According to her, the few efforts to ensure access to kidney care in Nigeria are noble but cannot substitute for systemic reform.
“The solution must be national, not charitable. We must integrate kidney disease into our National Health Insurance Scheme. We must subsidise dialysis, waive transplant medication costs for children, and promote local production of consumables,” she added.
Professor Asinobi described the kidney as an organ that is small in size, vast in function, and silent in operation but vital to life so that when injured by toxins or infection or scarred by obstruction or immune and metabolic disorders, it begins to falter in its function and can break down.
She lamented that the tragedy of kidney disease in Nigeria is not merely that the kidney fails but the failure to detect and refer cases early and respond systematically.
“We must test every child with unexplained swelling, monitor those with persistent anaemia or hypertension, train general practitioners, and equip primary care centres. The kidney does not cry out in pain when it begins to fail. But in every breathless child, every swollen face, and every weak and anaemic pupil, the kidney is crying.”
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She also recommended a national renal care policy be formulated and implemented, integration of kidney health into Nigeria’s universal health coverage framework, prioritising local production of dialysis consumables and generic immunosuppressants and an increased budgetary allocation to health and education sectors, in line with international benchmarks.
At the occasion, many accolades were given to Professor Asinobi, the first indigenous professor of paediatric nephrology at the Ibadan College of Medicine. They include the Provost of the College of Medicine; past and present presidents of Ibadan College of Medicine Alumni Association; President of the Nigerian Association of Nephrologists & Transplant Association of Nigeria, Professor I.O. Awobusuyi; among many others.
UI’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Kayode Adebowale, represented by the deputy vice-chancellor (academic), Professor Aderonke Baiyeroju, said in the field many feared to tread, paediatric nephrology, Professor Asinobi became a beacon of hope.
“Quite notably under her leadership, the paediatric nephrology unit, which she built, has graduated as a level A International Society of Nephrology (ISN) Sister Centre, thus making the centre one of the leaders in the field in West Africa,” he said.
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