Frontpage News (3256)
With about 45.9 million Nigerians, (27%) of the population, including pregnant women and children harbouring the malaria parasites in their blood and at the risk of severe morbidity and death from the disease, the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole has advanced reasons why malaria has continued to thrive in the country, defying potent control measures designed to check its menace.
Speaking at a briefing to commemorate this year World Malaria Day in Abuja last week, the minister put the blame squarely on Nigerians, saying they constitute the greatest obstacle in the fight against the malaria scourge through their inability or failure to embrace measures aimed at defeating the ailment.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has called for greater investments to increase the number of midwives and enhance the quality and reach of their services.
Medical and non-medical activities in all the government hospitals in Ondo were yesterday grounded as doctors in the employment of the government shut down all hospitals in the state.
The World Health Organisation, WHO, has called on both the Federal and state governments to, as a matter of national interest, check the migration of trained health workers to other countries with a view to curbing its underlying negative effect on the health sector. 
Contrary to some reports, the Global Funds for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has not stopped its grants to fight the diseases in Nigeria. But it admitted suspending disbursement to the principal recipients, the National Agency for Control of AIDS (NACA) and the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP).
The National Association of Seadogs (NAS) said it rendered free medical services to more than 500 residents of Bakassi Returnees Camp in Yenagoa.
Mr Ifeanyi Onochie, the National President of NAS, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday that the exercise witnessed impressive participation by the beneficiaries who waited patiently to receive medical attention.
The Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to ensure full implementation of this year budget signed into law by the President last Friday.
AMLSN commended the President for signing the Appropriation Bill into law, following some hiccups that had preceded its signing into law.
The protest rocking the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti, heightened on Wednesday as protesting workers locked Governor Ayodele Fayose out. Some staff had staged violent protests following the death of two doctors from the hospital that were among the six doctors and a driver that died along Abuja-Kaduna road on April 24.
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode on Thursday accepted the offer to raise funds toward the establishment of Mobile Cancer Centre for treatment of people who require such treatment, just as he expressed absolute commitment to providing efficient health care service delivery to all residents of the State.
Ambode, who said the major driving philosophy of his administration is to selflessly serve humanity especially by lifting people from their challenges, expressed the optimism that the establishment of the Cancer Centre in Lagos would be to the greater benefit of the people.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has called for collaboration among stakeholders towards eliminating blinding trachoma in Nigeria.
Adewole made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at an occasion to celebrate the progress and collaborative efforts towards eliminating blinding trachoma in the country.
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‘African countries can close healthcare gap through innovative public-private partnerships’
African and other developing nations can close the healthcare gap in their countries and reach OECD standards within years rather than decades through innovative public-private partnerships, a new report released by the World Economic Forum shows.
For example, according to the report, Health Systems: Leapfrogging in Emerging Economies, at current rates it would take Nigeria 300 years to achieve OECD levels of doctor access. However, case studies highlighted in the report reveal that programmes in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Kenya, can reverse the trend.
The Optometric Association of Nigeria (NOA) has called on the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to help regulate devices used by eye care service providers.
The association’s president, Dr Damian Echendu, who made the call when he led its executive members on a courtesy visit to SON headquarters in Abuja, said this is to ensure that the public receives quality products and services from optometrists.
I was conducting a clinic recently when my patient related his ordeal in the hands of a surgeon. Apparently, my patient had undergone two botched operations for a broken bone in his arm. The highest-ranking medico performed the operations: the consultant. It seemed that the outcome of the operations was no better than what a local traditional bonesetter or nature could do.
To be fair, without the right atmosphere and proper management, most hospitals are an embodiment of incompetence. The fact is that with poor funding, poor internal resource allocation and an abject state in most hospitals, medicine in Nigeria today is about 20 years behind what obtains in progressive communities.
For every single day, we lose about five pregnant women to maternal mortality, in a month about 150 women to maternal mortality in Kaduna State, Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) has said.
The Kaduna State team leader of Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), Alhaji Abdullahi Kabiru, who revealed this yesterday, said many pregnant women died as a result of poverty.
