BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
Following the government’s resolve to end cervical, breast cancer, prostrate cancer and other terminal diseases in Nigeria, the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Abakalik, Ebonyi State, says it has screened about 21,209 patients with a total of 951 of them fully treated.
The Centre stated also that it screened no fewer than 1,273 prostate cancer patients and treated 43 of them.
The Medical Director of NOFIC, Johnson Obuna, stated this at the Centre during a visit by members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Ebonyi State Correspondents’ Chapel, recently.
He added that a total of 3,063 Vesico Vaginal Fistula patients had been treated free of charge at the Centre with 94 caesarean sessions performed within one year just as 299 deliveries were taken free of charge.
He said, “Most of these women developed VVF because they didn’t have money to attend hospital and pay for delivery. They keep on having the fistula. There are some of these women that, after repairs, get pregnant. They go back and deliver and again develop fistula.
“Since we started these maternity services, all those women who had fistula and got pregnant, came here and we did caesarean sessions for them free. Since we started the maternity services, we had done 94 caesarean sessions and 299 deliveries.
“There was a 16-year-old girl that got pregnant and we did her surgery free. That girl, if she had delivered elsewhere, would have come down with fistula.
“Since our hospital is offering services for the abused, we said let us take all the abused and make sure that this centre handles cases of the abused. We started the gender-based violence unit.
“Since we started, we handled a total of 55 cases of gender-based violence cutting across rape, FGM, economic and physical abuse. We screened about 21,209 cervical and breast cancer patients and 1,273 prostate cancer patients. We also treated about 513 cervical cancer, 438 breast cancer, 43 prostate cancers, while we repaired about 3,063 fistula patents.
“In terms of prostate surgery, we handled about 849 cases. We screened 868 cases in mammogram services and we rehabilitated 486 fistula patients.”
