Story from Musa GAMBO, Maiduguri
The University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital marked the International Kidney Day with a series of activities at Maimusari Secondary School Mairi, Along Bama Road.
Celebrating, medical staffers went on a massive awareness campaign on kidney diseases and symptoms. Tests were carried out in the busy Tashan Bama market and Bama motor park, with the general public sensitized by a group of doctors and health workers from the Nephrology kidney department and student doctors of the teaching hospital.
Also, tests of urine samples, blood glucose, blood pressure measurements, hypertension, and distribution of free drugs and facemask were all distributed during the program.
Speaking to NEPTUNE PRIME, Dr. Mustapha Lawan of the Nephrology unit said they are marking this year’s event by carrying out series of tests that would enable early identification of the Renal Problems.
According to Engr. Kaku, a biomedical Engineer with UMTH said Renal diseases have not spared any age brackets and are silently asymptomatic that can only be known through Electrolytes Urea Creating tests.
The patients with renary associated diseases who died for refusal to start dialysis are more than the ones dying for enrolling in dialysis. Explaining further, he said that many people fail to start dialysis upon doctors’ directives because there is a popular misconception that anyone who starts dialysis has already given up on life and the story is contrary to the reality. Some reasons that make the dialysis difficult is financial challenge to fund the dialysis, compression of blood to excrete more than the normal amount of urine from blood which induces weakness and dizziness on people after dialysis.
People are expected to minimize consumption of salt and processed foods and further patronize Vegetables and fruits with regular exercises in addition to timely medical checkup of EUC to minimize occurrence of Renal diseases. An adult is expected to excrete 2.5 litres of urine every 24 hours and 20 litres per week on average, and urine is the waste product of blood being filtered by the kidney.
The Borno state government in it’s efforts to ease the suffering of people with kidney diseases has provided 10 machines for free dialysis in the state specialist hospital Maiduguri, but there are many patients that cannot get the dialysis on a daily basis as required medically. For that people usually get 2 or mostly 3 times a week which is still not enough compared to the daily urination of 2.5 litters in 24 hours.
In 2017 alone, about 1.2 million people had died from kidney disease and an additional 1.4 million people have died from cardiovascular disease attributed to impaired kidney.
World Kidney Day (WKD) is a global health awareness campaign focusing on the importance of the kidneys and reducing the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide celebrated annually on the 2nd Thursday in March. And a joint initiative of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) and the International Federation of Kidney Foundations (IFKF).
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