by Moshood Isah
Nana Abdullahi, a Community Health Extension Worker residing in Nasarawa Local Government of Kano State has just completed a 3-day comprehensive training on effective screening, diagnosis and management of Non-Communicable Diseases. The training built the capacity of 24 Community Healthcare workers in both the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and Kano state, Nigeria on adopting the World Health Organisation (WHO) Package of Essential Non-Communicable Diseases Intervention (N-PEN) in Nigeria.
Nana, a health extension worker for some years now, has encountered a mix of experiences with her patients. The most heart-wrenching is that after screening and providing them with medication, many of these patients lack the financial resources to consistently purchase the necessary medications. This often leads to a decline in their health, complications and potentially culminating in death.
“We used to have issues with the patients due to lack of drug compliance because they complain of financial challenges and without the medications you cannot manage hypertension”, she said.
According to Nana, “there is a patient whose Blood Pressure (BP) keeps rising despite the drugs I prescribed for her. Unfortunately, after visiting her a couple of times, she confessed that she could not afford to buy the drugs”. Faced with this situation, Nana felt compelled to purchase the medication herself to save the patient's life.
While the training exposed Nana to a more effective way of screening, communicating and administering medications to patients, Nana is even more excited that this intervention by eHealth Africa will be providing free medication for her clients. She said, “we are glad that this project (Digitizing for Impact, Improving Access to Integrated Services for NCDs in Nigeria) by eHealth Africa will be giving our patients free medications so that will help them with compliance with their medications”.
“I have upgraded from my previous knowledge on how to screen and prescribe medications. We will now use the national protocol for treating diabetic and hypertensive patients”, said Nana. .
Beyond Primary Healthcare facilities, the intervention also collaborates with REACH clinics (Reaching Everyone with Accessible Community Healthcare) located in selected communities. Dr Adawiya Mahmud Ila, a Product Quality Assurance Coordinator at the EHA’s REACH Clinics in Kano has been supporting free medical outreach programs in Kano while also managing the community health extension workers. She identified challenges faced by healthcare workers, including determining when to introduce new antihypertensive medications, reduce existing medications, or wean patients off them entirely.
“We have been properly trained on how to identify and screen for hypertension and diabetes and how to counsel patients”, she said. After this training, Dr Adawiya expects improvement in the way hypertension and other Non-Communicable Diseases are being treated and managed.
“My expectation from the Community Health Extension Workers is to treat hypertensive and diabetic patients the right way and not make the mistakes of inadequately reducing or increasing medications” She is also optimistic that the training will lead to proper management and better follow up with patients.
Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) like Diabetes, Cancer, Hypertension and heart disease are considered among the most deadly diseases globally. According to UNICEF, it is estimated that one in five deaths among adolescents are caused by NCDs. Similarly, the disparities in access to healthcare services contribute to the ineffective diagnosis and management of NCDs.
Digitizing for Impact; Improving Access to Integrated Services for NCDs in Nigeria, is a brainchild of eHealth Africa currently being piloted in the FCT, Abuja, and Kano communities. This intervention is a household-based and integrated approach especially for underserved communities to improve the coverage of appropriate NCD services.
The N-PEN intervention basically identified the primary health care system or facility as the most effective and cost-effective means of getting a lot of people to treat common NCDs like Hypertension and Diabetes. This is because Primary healthcare services are the closest to the poor and vulnerable and they could easily walk in and access the services.