Port Harcourt – Lagos 4:25pm
THE National coordinator of the Association of People Living with Sickle Cell Disorder (APLSCD), Aisha Maureen Edward said running health-related agencies should not be an all-comers affair.
She said only persons trained specifically for particular health conditions should be allowed to run them, especially the ones that concern sickle cell disorder.
Edward who spoke during a meeting with the Chief Medical Director of Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State and other medical specialists who have a stake in sickle cell disorder, bemoaned the intrusion of unethical persons parading as NGO officials and defrauding persons with health challenges.
She debunked rumours that she was fighting NGOs so that her association would be the only one managing sickle cell patients, noting that she would not even be able to manage all the sickle cell cases at hand.
She maintained that she was only against the fraudulence and exploitations that had been the order of the day under the guise of sickle cell oriented NGOs. She cited several cases whereby NGOs, medical doctors and others use the name of government to hoodwink and swindle sickle cell disorder patients.
She enumerated some of the challenges APLSCD still encounter, while recommending measures the medical specialists could employ to aid the association in its bid to improve the lot of sickle cell patients.
The coordinator frowned at the exorbitant cost of medical management of sickle cell patients,alleging that even some medical consultants in government hospitals who own private hospitals collect exorbitant rates from her members.
Edward observed that the high cases of drug addiction amongst sickle cell patients was as a result of the pain they experience frequently.
She explained that after she got rehabilitated from her own drug addiction bouts, she discovered that it was the psychological therapy she received that played the primary role of rehabilitating her.
Edward, therefore. prayed that the Medical Director looked into assigning student psychologists to carry out their internship with sickle cell patients.
While noting that sickle cell patients suffer rejection, inferiority complex, low self-esteem, stigmatisation, she lauded clergymen for their support.
“The psychological solace APLSCD gets in pockets are from clergymen which they offer for free,” she said.
She called on government to support such helpful clergymen, even as she appealed for chaplains from different denominations to be attached to the association.