Oncologist tasks FG on cancer management

By Sola Ogundipe
TOWARDS making cancer care and treatment more accessible and affordable in Nigeria, the Federal Government has been urged to adopt a multidisciplinary approach? and coordinated approach to cancer? management in the country.

Dr. Samuel Eyesan, an Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and sub-specilaist in Orthopaedic Oncology (bone cancer management), said the only way to bring down the currently prohibitive cost of cancer treatment, was for government at the top to acquire a central coordinating role.

Eyesan, one of the three orthopaedic oncologists in Nigeria, lamented that in Nigeria currently, it is often the role of? individual consultants to get the specialists together, noting: ?This is unlike the practice in Europe where there is a government controlled policy and a law, controlling cancer management.?

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Interest of the patient

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He noted that according to such law, the time for seeing the patient is incorporated into the working time of each specialist such that time is dedicated to discuss and agree on the common way forward, all in the interest of the patient. Cancer management must be a team work and government must make such policy possible.?

Speaking during a send forth party held on his behalf by the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, NOHI, Lagos, in collaboration with the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, MDCAN, he said: ?Cancer control must be centrally coordinated and the Federal Ministry of Health must take up that role.

?Every patient has to be seen by a group, not just the doctor, but the radiologist, photo-therapist, chemo-therapist, and rehabilitation specialist. Everybody will have to contribute and decide the best way for the patient, not just the surgeon.?

At the event, held to mark his departure from the health institution after 30 years of service, Eyesan, who is taking up appointment at Bowen University in Osun State as lecturer and trainer of medical care personnel, vowed to continue to strive to make cancer care more affordable in Nigeria.

Disclosing the introduction of the concept of non-amputation of limbs in the country, he stated that government must make direct input in such concepts so that the cost of treating cancer can come down. ?We are about to begin the limb-sparing surgery with custom made prostheses or implants from India. They are already here and the procedures are soon to begin, although the drugs still expensive. However, the World Health Organisation, WHO, has said we should buy generics which are cheaper than branded implants.

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Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/02/oncologist-tasks-fg-on-cancer-management/

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