Launch of HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge
The HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge was formally launched at the HIFA2015 Conference on 9th May 2011.
Speech to launch the HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge
Dr Oluyombo A Awojobi, Consultant Rural Surgeon, Awojobi Clinic Eruwa, Oyo State, Nigeria
“Dear HIFA2015 colleagues,
I want to thank the organizers of this conference for the invitation and honour to launch the HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge.
I am Dr Oluyombo Awojobi, a rural surgeon and an HIFA2015 member for 1 year. I have been practising in Eruwa, rural south west Nigeria since 1983. I had all my professional training at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria from 1970 to 1983. The first time I travelled out of my country was in 1995 to the UK at the invitation of the British Council in Nigeria. I am back this time at the invitation of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland attending the conference at Bournemouth.
As a rural surgeon in Nigeria, I know how important it is that mothers, family caregivers and ordinary citizens have some essential healthcare knowledge. We must not forget that in some countries in Africa, more than 80% of children die in the home, before reaching a healthcare facility. I see countless women and unborn children who die needlessly in childbirth from obstructed labour and antepartum haemorrhage when they could have been saved by an emergency caesarean section.
In my locality, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, people with acute abdominal emergencies such as bowel obstruction from inguinal hernia and abdominal abscess from typhoid fever are taken to traditional healers whose treatments and potions are useless. As a result, precious time is lost and the patients are dead before they reach me, or they are so sick that I cannot save them. As a result of misinformation, victims of road traffic accidents have been treated by the traditional bone setters and have ended up with non-union and malunion of fractures and unreduced dislocations. A few have developed gangrene of the limb requiring amputation.
People with cancer do not realise that there is a good chance of cure if it is treated early. As a result, they delay for months before they come for professional help, and they arrive with such advanced disease that it is too late for me to save them. This is my experience as a rural surgeon.
This is why I believe the HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge is essential. We need to make sure that every person in every village has access to basic healthcare information that will save lives. Many centuries ago among the Yoruba of western Nigeria, we have used the talking drum to relay important messages from one village to the next such that people are informed within 24 hours. In the last five decades, most big villages and all the towns have primary health centres that incorporate dispensaries and maternity units and are staffed by community health extension workers who have replaced the traditional birth attendants. In most rural towns, there are medical officers in both the private and public sectors offering primary care surgery.
In addition to drums, we now have radios, televisions, and mobile phones. We have the technology to ensure that essential healthcare knowledge is available in every village.
We HIFA2015 members now need to turn our attention to how these tools can best be used – in addition to drums, in addition to theatre, in addition to face-to-face health education – to ensure that every person worldwide will have access to an informed mother, father, family caregiver or citizen.
The first decisions of the mother or family caregiver can often mean the difference between life and death
I hereby declare the HIFA 2011-2015 Challenge formally open.”
Dr Oluyombo A Awojobi
