An ounce of prevention

With a lack of basic health services, practicing preventative medicine reduces the incidence of some diseases and prevents others

By Sr. Mary Deighan, O.L.M.
Summer 2005

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Mwuese was a beautiful young woman in her early 20s who came to one of the first village health posts we opened. Married at a young age, her first two babies died and for a few years it seemed she could no longer conceive. Now she was pregnant again. Like so many of the poor, she had never seen or talked to a trained health worker. We were able to give her prenatal care and to her joy, she delivered a healthy baby boy.

With proper immunizations (kept at cool temperatures with great effort in the tropical heat), Terkula, her child, escaped some major childhood diseases. He was treated at the health post for the unavoidable malaria, diarrhea and occasional parasitic infections to which children here are so prone. And he has lived to adulthood. Mwuese now has grandchildren of her own to delight her heart, and ours as well when she visits the clinic.

As we move into 2005, it is quite apparent that life in Nigeria has not been kind to the majority of its citizens. While most African countries managed to achieve an economic growth rate of about four percent in 2004, the poor of Nigeria experienced negative growth. Nowhere is this reflected in the lives of the people so much as in the lack of basic health services. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are among the main sicknesses that cause so much living misery and in many cases death. And those affected often have had little or no treatment.

When I returned to Nigeria in 1984 hoping to work in the field of health care, it seemed obvious even then that Primary Health Care would be one of the most effective means of providing basic services to the poor in villages in the area where we live. I gradually built up a small team of health assistants to go out to village health posts, established in each case only after lengthy negotiations with the village elders.

We began to provide pre- and post-natal screening, immunizations for children against deadly childhood sicknesses, treatment of the most common ailments, as well as simple health teaching about nutrition, clean water and care of the sick. As the AIDS pandemic spread like wild fire, we all struggled to come to terms with it. We tried to meet the challenge of becoming as knowledgeable as possible about the changing nature of the HIV virus and about treatment in its many stages.

Another health care success story came as the result of a special drug called Mectizen provided by the World Health Organization. River blindness is endemic here in Vandeikya province. It is caused by the bite of a black fly living near slow running rivers. With Mectizen, the incidence of Oncocerciasis has drastically reduced over the years and scores of people have been saved from blindness.

If people can afford it, they pay a set fee for medical services at the village health posts. This fee helps to cover some of the costs for drugs, salaries and transportation. The London-based aid agency, CAFOD, gives an annual grant to help keep the program functioning but it cannot meet all our expenses. It is the support of family and friends over the years that has enabled Our Lady's Missionaries to be present in Nigeria and to practice preventative medicine: opening eight health posts, giving numerous health worker training courses, immunizing thousands of children, treating countless sick people, teaching health lessons. Because of these practices, we have reduced the incidence of some diseases and prevented others.

Thus it is no surprise to me to hear of a new emphasis on Primary Health Care as the first line of health defense in some areas of Canada and as an indispensable part of Canada's national medical service. After all, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

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