FFF, SHINE UK SUPPORT 240 CHILDREN WITH SPINA BIFIDA, TRAIN 89 NURSES IN NIGERIA, SEEK MORE GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

 By Yemisi Dada

There is a need for Government at all levels to have dedicated bowel incontinence care and management as well as specialized care givers for people with Spina Bifida at all public health facilities across the country.


This will help create more awareness on the treatment, management and care of those with Spina Bifida as they have challenges of controlling their bowel movement thereby soiling themselves without proper care.


This was the crux of discourse at a one day Media sensitization on Spina Bifida by a Non Governmental Organization, Festus Fajemilo Foundation, FFF, in collaboration with Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Information Networking Equality, SHINE, in UK, with the support of UK Department of Health and Social, Care managed Global Health Partnerships (Formerly THET) and DUCIT Blue Solutions under its Saving Lives, Improving Futures, SLIF, Project.


At the sensitization programme held at Ikeja, the Executive Director, FFF, Mr Afolabi Fajemilo, maintained that with the right treatment and support, many children with spina bifida survive well into adulthood living independent lives, though maybe challenging and expensive condition, hence the need for government support.


While noting that with catheterization knowledge and education, children with Spina Bifida can stay cleaner, Mr Fajemilo condemned the societal cultural and spiritual myths about children with Spina Bifida and urged parents to seek medical help, saying it is a birth defect and not punishment from the gods.


"We are partnering the Media to increase awareness and educate parents with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus children that care can be gotten in tertiary health facilities across the country rather than allow spiritual and cultural factors extort money for them in the name of solutions that have not be proven anyway. Spina Bifida is a lifelong defects that can be managed"


Explaining the causes and symptoms of Spina Bifida, a Social Worker, Mrs Lara Fernandez and a Nurse, Mrs  Onyebuka Ojei, explained that the birth defect is a combination of genetic, nutritional and environmental risk factors and deficiency of folic acid, also known as vitamin B-9, during pregnancy an urged expectant mothers to consume food rich in folate to reduce their chances of giving birth to a child with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.


"Spina Bifida is not a spiritual problem but a birth defect which could lead to nerve damage, and some will have learning or intellectual disabilities. There is no cure for spina bifida. However, most people with spina bifida lead long lives. Most children with spina bifida have some degree of weakness or paralysis in their lower limbs.


"Folic acid can reduce certain birth defects of the brain and spinal cord by more than 70 percent. These birth defects are called neural tube defects (NTDs). NTDs happen when the spinal cord fails to close properly. The most common neural tube defect is spina bifida."


One of the beneficiaries of the SLIF project, a twenty one year old Miss Gbemisola Awodipe who is an undergraduate at Yaba College of Technology, lamented stigmatization by the public as one of her major challenges and called on the society to show empathy and psychological support to them.


"The challenges of having Spina Bifida is much as people tends to run away from us that we are smelling and they don't want to associate with us especially with the way we walk but I want government to support our foundation and help us"


So far the SLIF project has provided care and support to two hundred and forty children with Spina Bifida while eighty nine Nurses have been trained in special needs care for patients in the last one year, across the eight implementing tertiary health facilities across five out of the six geopolitical zones of the country.



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