…Says men don’t treat their health as a priority
ENYERIBE EJIOGU ([email protected])
The growing incidence of prostate disease would get worse unless men begin to take keen interest in the proper management of their health, by undergoing regular checks, and particularly when they attain the age of 40.
Elochukwu Adibo, a biomedical research expert and laboratory director of El-Lab Limited, made this submission at a medial outreach held in collaboration with the Lagos State Maternal and Child Centre, Amuwo Odofin, to screen men for prostate disease. Despite the saturation publicity given to the programme, the attendance was not encouraging.
“The response we have gotten is not as expected. Men always exhibit this macho feeling even when they are very ill. At other times, many men erroneously believe that there is nothing wrong with them – as long as they don’t have a fever or something of the sort that they can readily feel,” Elochukwu said.
He spoke further: “I can assure you that there are so many men around this environment (referring to Festac, Amuwo Odofin, Maza Maza, Ojo, Satellite Town) who are experiencing urinary symptoms that may be indicative of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BHP) or prostate cancer but they will not even tell the wife they live with, not to talk of going to see a doctor except it becomes so bad. For so many, their wives prevail on them for days and weeks to go to hospital. And sometimes they practically force them, by continuously pestering and pushing them.
“We know that is common among men; that is why we have taken it as our duty or responsibility to do advocacy on prostate cancer because it is wrong to assume that our effort would not yield positive results. But we are also happy when we see on social media that the number of people who have read the message we put out are in the thousands up to 80000 and more. This is very encouraging and makes us happy. Sometimes we distribute 10,000 fliers. Every day at the Maternal and Child Centre, Amuwo Odofin about 120 women come for antenatal care and so they take our fliers and read our roll-up banner displays in the reception and various points in the facility. We also send out about 50,000 messages from our database. With all these, we are really happy that people are seeing our messages, urging them to go for prostate cancer screening. Yet some of them do not come, perhaps it is not convenient to come to an open forum like this one. You see, many men are still secretive about health issues.”
On why men tend to hide their sickness, Elochukwu adduced shame or pride as the two major reasons. According to him, it is better to do a screening and discover a problem, because early detection leads to cure.
“When cancer comes, it is localized within the organ. But if it progresses without detection, adjoining tissues and organs will be affected. And this will lead to a more complicated treatment plan that would involve surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, because cells would leave the site of origin and affect other organs. In such a situation you would be battling with cancer at the site or origin and in the other affected organs. The thing about prostate cancer is that it likes to spread to the bones. This could be avoided through early detection. Early detection is not expensive as opposed to managing the case when detected late.”
He explained further: “The thing about prostate cancer is that it remains localized at the site of origin for a long time and not be problem. That is why it is important that men go for screening early. It is always important to go to the hospital to have a check and allow the doctor to send you for diagnostic investigations at a good laboratory. That way, you are wiser in every way. So men should come out and undergo screening. Unfortunately, men don’t treat their health as a priority.
“We know that men take care of their cars and take particular interest in renewing their DSTv subscription to avoid missing European matches. But honestly, men do not treat their health as a priority. As I said earlier, men show this macho attitude even when they are sick. That is why I think your observation is germane and extremely important to call men not to wait until they are almost dead from illness before they will seek and get medical attention. I must commend the few men who undergo regular medical health check. For instance, we have periodic health check in our facility. Every six months we send reminders. Some of our male patients call us on their own to ask when they would be due for the check. But these ones are like just two per cent of the total. The remaining 98 per cent need to consciously do the same. They should make a priority to go for check once every year. The money they spend on social activities and entertainment, polishing themselves and doing other things that are not as important as their health, should be part of it should be invested in their health, to get reassured that all is well. Men should increase their consciousness of preventive health check. Prevention is always better than cure.
Generally, before now, cancer in men was neglected and not much was heard about it. Whereas there are awareness programmes focusing on breast or cervical cancer, Elochukwu said that prostate awareness is beginning to gain ground.
The health expert commended the Lagos State Maternal and Child Centre for the collaboration between the private and public health facilities in the battle to improve the health status of Nigerians.
“The current medical director of the Maternal and Child Centre is very much interested in promoting and sustaining the health of women and children, not just in Amuwo Odofin but the entire Lagos State. We initiated the process that led to the prostate cancer screening programme when we participated in the cervical cancer screening exercise held in the facility in January this year. It was quite massive; not less than 500 women were screened over three days.
“After the exercise, the partners held a technical review and came to conclusion that the husbands of all the women should equally be given opportunity to have access and benefit from prostate cancer screening. The medical director of Maternal and Child Centre readily agreed with this view and expressed his germane concern about the situation of men’s health.
“In terms of healthcare delivery, there should be no gap between the public and private hospitals; there is great need to close the gap. Till date, about 60 per cent of healthcare services are still accessed through private sector hospitals. The major gap is the cost of accessing healthcare, which is higher in the private sector. But in real terms, it is still the same because what you may think is cheap has been subsidized by the government to make the cost affordable by the average citizen.
I want to say that vision and mission of the Maternal and Child Centre is being realized. The leadership of the centre has done very well. I must commend the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for his clear and unstinting commitment to improving the health of the people of Lagos State. I give kudos to the government. The public health sector in Lagos State is being run well. We intend to continue the collaboration with the health facility particularly in the area of cancer awareness.”