Lagos communities benefit from free medical advisory

Lagos residents were privileged to benefit of free medical check-ups by Indian doctors from January 28^th – 31^st. The doctors, some of India’s finest, were brought in at the instance of the West Africa Theological Seminary (WATS), supported by Glory Christian Ministries (GCM) and Artemis Health Institute of India.

The medical consultations were held on the 28^th and 29^th at GCM and on 30^th and 31^st at WATS, and many Lagosians availed themselves of the opportunity to consult with world class doctors about their health status.

Coordinator of the medical outreach, Pastor Oluwafemi Martins, while speaking with Oseyiza Oogbodo Blog, described the project as a success. “The turnout of people in need of medical advisory was quite much. The doctors had their hands full attending to them all. The work left them fagged out, but the doctors are incredible. They attended to patients from 10am to 6pm each day with just 30 minutes for lunch break.”

When Oseyiza Oogbodo Blog visited the medical camp at WATS, the doctors were truly in full swing attending to patients who had a diverse range of complaints, as authenticated by one of them, Dr Kapil Kochhar, Artemis’ senior consultant for minimally invasive and bariatric surgery. “We’ve attended to all sorts of ailments,” said Kochhar. “General body check-up, gynaecology cases like uterus and fibroid removals which had been badly done here, orthopaedics, all sorts.”

Explaining their mode of treating the patients, he said, “There are some patients we saw who could be treated with just drugs. For such patients, we outlined a treatment plan and referred them to local doctors and pharmacists on ground here for further intervention.

“However, there are some patients we could only advice to come to us in India for further treatment because their cases are really advanced. Some of those patients were four cases of bad breast cancer, arthritis, deformed spines and many others.”

Another of the doctors, a female, Renu Raina Sehgal, an obstetrics and gynaecology consultant, disclosed that this trip was her second to Nigeria. “The first time I came to Nigeria was last year when NDDC brought some of us down on a medical outreach to Ondo and Lagos States. We spent about seven days in Ondo and three in Lagos.

“My second coming has only shown me that there’s been no real development in Nigeria’s medical sector in-between my visits. The same general complaints I attended to on my first visit are those I came across again now. These general complaints are supposed to be easily treated in Nigeria but they are not because the patients don’t have access to healthcare services.”

The orthopaedics expert of the medical team, Sanjay Sarup, disclosed that most of the cases he had to contend with were arthritis complications. “Many people came to me with arthritis of their joints. Most of them developed arthritis because of age-related degeneration. Quite often, some of them have their arthritis exaggerated or increased by excessive weight and lack of exercise.”

Considering that arthritis is a very complex condition, Oseyiza Oogbodo Blog queried him on what he would do for the arthritic patients.

“What I can do for them is replacement of the arthritic joints with prosthetics. If it is spinal arthritis, I can do a disc replacement, spinal fusion or microscopic spine surgery. These interventions on their arthritis will make them pain free and able to live a better life.”

Talking about the worst case he saw throughout his four-day consultations, he said, “It was a case of a thirteen-year-old boy who has scoliosis, a very special sort of spine deformity which develops in people when they are between 12 – 14 years of age. Now, if treated early, the spine can still be made normal, but if left, it will eventually cripple the person badly when he or she is 40, 50 years old.”

All over the world, healthcare services are very expensive in the sense that they are not easily affordable by the average people who make up the most of the world’s population. Doctors charge good money for their services, but the Indian doctors did not charge for theirs during their four-day working visit to Nigeria.

When this reporter asked him why, Sarup had a ready answer. “Well, we came down with a non-profit motive basically because we are here to open up a channel for people to contact us. You see, when people think of healthcare, they think only of the UK and US without knowing healthcare is cheaper in India.

“Healthcare in the US is 20, 25 times what it is in India. That means an operation that is $10,000 in India is $250,000 in the US. And that is for the same level of technical expertise and world class hospitals. But people don’t know this. So we came now to let people know it, so we can’t look at profit now.

“Also, I’ve found out that India healthcare is even cheaper than Nigeria’s. A cataract surgery in India is N100,000 but it’s N150,000 here so I think it’s better for Nigerians to come to India for cataract surgery and others.”

While Sarup was open about the motive for their seemingly humanitarian trip, Kochhar preferred to be diplomatic.

“I really have no idea about whether I’m offering my services free or not. I’m an employee of Artemis and they told me to come to Nigeria for a medical camp and like the good employee I am, I obeyed them the same way you as a journalist obeys your editor when he tells you to do something,” said Kochhar.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t only Lagosians who benefitted from the medical outreach. Popular NTA staff, Jimmy Atte, flew in from Abuja for consultations on the second day of the outreach. He was very familiar with the doctors and they related in a very jovial and cordial manner. According to him, when he read in the papers that Artemis’ doctors were coming for a medical camp, he knew he just had to avail himself of the opportunity to benefit again from their health analysis.

Another beneficiary, Segun Sofunke, the Lay President of the Methodist Church, Lagos, said they gave him a sound analysis of his cardiology condition while Nureni Alabi said “the medical outreach is very, very good in the sense that it was an opportunity for people to check up on their health as psychologically, some people are even ill because they don’t have any opportunity to check-up on their health.  

“Also, the doctors are very, very good. I know from consulting them. They are experts and they are willing so I hope the medical outreach can be at least once in a quarter.”