…Converge on Bauchi over children’s care

Members of the Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON) have converged on Bauchi to discuss surgical innovations, medical care of Nigerian children and career development of paediatric students.

Also, the Association performed free 208 surgical operations among children in Bauchi State to mark its 25th annual general meeting and scientific conference where surgical innovations to advance the profession and the practitioners were discussed.

National President of the Association and a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Roland Iheanyichukwu said that, in collaboration with the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), a total of 1,537 consultations were done while about 208 operations were conducted, including “very complex operations.”

Iheanyichukwu said the gathering was aimed to ensure that Nigerian children which constitute the Nation’s population have access to appropriately trained specialists. “You know that about 40 percent of the population are children, and we really need doctors and specialists to take care of these children,” he said.

He raised ths alarm over distubing hernia as one of the common surgical conditions requiring treatment among children. He explained that some childhood hernias were congenital and could result from the failure of a normal passage in the body to close properly after birth.

A Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics and Epidemiology at the United States, Dr. Benedict C. Nwomeh, speaking on “What the Theatre Doesn’t Teach You: Insights from a Career in Surgical Education” enlightened the students to be more dedicated and advanced their careers to an enviable degree.

“I especially want to encourage them to choose paediatric surgery because there is nothing more precious than taking care of the most vulnerable, which are infants and children,” he said.

Nwomeh said children continued to face multidimensional socio-economic and infrastructural challenges that affected their ability to access appropriate healthcare. He identified poverty, inadequate access to safe drinking water, insufficient healthcare facilities and poor road networks, particularly in rural communities, among the major challenges.

“If you look at the Nigerian child, which is the population that we serve, the Nigerian child currently is beset with a lot of difficulties,” he said.

He noted that paediatric surgeons witnessed the consequences of these challenges daily, particularly when children and their families struggled to obtain the medical attention they needed.