Nigeria needs Family doctors to achieve Universal Health Coverage — SOFPON

 

Nigeria needs Family doctors to achieve Universal Health Coverage — SOFPON

 

By Chioma Obinna To mark this year’s World Family Doctor’s Day, a passionate call has gone to the Nigerian family physicians to renew family medicine as unique and indispensable discipline critical in achieving universal health coverage in the country.

Chairman of the Lagos Society of Family Physicians of Nigeria, SOFPON, Dr Blessing Chukwukelu in a speech she delivered on behalf of the President of SOFPON, said family doctors are distinguished by their resolute commitment to patients, healthcare providers, and their communities. She maintained that family medicine must engage in new efforts to expand its scope of practice.  ”We, physicians must therefore begin to define, delicate and demonstrate what family medicine is and how it is the true centre of healthcare.

 

On the theme of the day: “Building the Future with Family Doctors.”,  Chukwukelu who stated that family medicine would continue to fight for individuals and communities that the healthcare system had ignored noted that the theme resonates with the World Health Organisation’s, WHO,  ”Year of the Health and Care Workers”

. According to her, the theme is based on the four pillars of World Family Doctor’s Day 2021 which include building the future with family doctors and primary care teams; and building the future with family doctors and patients. Other pillars are building the future with family doctors and new technologies and building the future with family doctors and you. Continuing, Chukwukelu said that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, new technologies had emerged as fundamental tools for healthcare professionals to continue their mission, adding that family physicians must become advocates for an inclusive, equitable, accessible, and affordable health system. Corroborating her views, a Consultant Family Physician at the Family Medicine Department, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Dr Oludaisi Oduniyi, said for Nigeria to achieve universal health coverage, family physicians were needed because they share the same habitat with patients in the communities and know the peculiarity of the issues patients are facing. Oduniyi said the comprehensive, compassionate, and people-centered care operated by family doctors was critical to attaining universal health coverage in Nigeria, adding that the burden of diseases had shifted direction to integrated, comprehensive and people-centered primary care. He said family doctors being the first point of contact of a patient with the healthcare system were experts in preventive, diagnosing, and treating the whole person. He said that patients desire affordable and accessible healthcare that was personalised to suit their peculiar health challenges, adding that family doctors manage over 90 per cent of health challenges. Oduniyi said that family physicians were committed to persons rather than diseases, saying these allowed them to build trust and bond with patients. “We share the same habitat with patients, so we know the peculiarity of the issues patients are facing. “We are trained to manage patient’s resources, consider their socio-economic resources and instead of telling them to do 10 laboratory tests, we can narrow it to two and make a diagnosis from there,” he said.

 

 Oduniyi said that the country needs more family physicians to achieve universal health coverage. “For instance, some communities may not have specialists; if a patient has heart challenges, a competent family physician should be able to manage common heart disease conditions, even though not a cardiologist,” he said. ”Family physicians are committed to persons rather than diseases, we are interested in the person that has TB rather than calling the person TB patient. ”We are skilled in handling acute or emergency care, we stabilise the patients before referring such patients to a neurosurgeon. Asides from seeing patients in the hospital, we are the only physicians certified to see patients at home. We take hospitals to patients’ homes and integrate family members to join us in the treatment. ”We are trained to manage patient’s resources, consider their socioeconomic resources, and instead of telling them to do 10 tests, we can narrow it to two and take it from there. He advised families to have their own personal family physician. ”For us to achieve universal health coverage in Nigeria, we need family physician because in some communities they may not have a cardiologist, and some states only have two cardiologists, if people have heart challenges, a competent family physician should be able to manage common heart disease condition, even though not a cardiologist.”

 

 ”Every contact we have with a patient is an opportunity for health promotion, if I’m at the helms of health affairs for this nation, I would encourage more doctors to embrace family physicians so that we can attain universal health coverage fast. World Family Doctor Day, celebrated annually on May 19, to highlight the role and contribution of family doctors and primary care teams in healthcare systems around the world.

Nigeria news paper