Expert raises alarm over shortage of nephrologist to improve survival rate

An expert, Nigerian Association of Nephrology, raises alarm over shortage of nephrologist despite high cases of kidney disease.

A Professor of Medicine and a Consultant Nephrologist, Fatiu Arogunde said in an interview that, there is a need for more nephrologists in the country to improve the nephrologist-patient ratio and increase the survival rate among patients with kidney disease.

“Nigeria can only boast of only about 250 active nephrologists for its estimated 200 million population,” Arogundade said.

“Unfortunately, I can tell you confidently that the number of nephrologists in Nigeria is still less than 250 that cover the entire country.

“By the World Health Organisation’s standard, we should have one nephrologist to 75-100 dialysis or transplant patients.

“If our population is 200 million and we assume that about 10 percent of the population could have kidney disease, that translates to about 20 million and out of this, we assume that the young middle age and the elderly population will cover about 60 percent of our population.

“So, it means that our number is short of what is supposed to be; we are supposed to have 120,000 nephrologists in Nigeria to take care of patients with kidney disease,” he added.

According to him, nephrologists are located where there are renal care centres and the centres are mainly in the urban centres.

A nephrologist is a kidney disease specialist who offers the expertise, guidance and support needed for a healthy kidney.

“To increase the number of nephrologists in Nigeria, we need to train more and we need to expose them to what obtains in the best of centres all over the globe.

“This will help to improve the nephrologist-patient ratio, many more patients will have access to good care and many more patient will survive and they wouldn’t die untimely death like we currently see,” Arogundade said.

Nephrologists are currently located where there is renal care centres and the centres are only in the urban centres.

The conditions that predispose one to kidney disease are high, particularly hypertension and diabetes. The higher these conditions are, the higher the chances to have an increase in the proportion of people that will eventually develop kidney disease.

Kidney disease affects virtually every organ of the body.Most times, it affects the heart, the brain, vessels and it could affect the legs.

If it affects the legs, it could cause heart attack and that is why the commonest death in a patient with kidney disease is the cardiovascular problem.

He revealed that lack of access to treatment and cost of treatment are some of the challenges of nephrology practice in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Federal Government warns against patronising quacks for medical care

Punch/Martha M