Of the Public Space, Cancer-related Deaths and Nigeria's Public Health Policy
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By Yemi Ademowo Johnson
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A discerning and critical mind ought to be disturbed by the manner our public
space is often privatized and held to ransom, sometime for weeks, by, in some
cases tautologously annoying, political issues relegating other vital happenings
that are also germane to national growth and development to the background. This
ought to be an unwelcome situation in a sane society because all issues ought to
enjoy appreciable space in the public gallery. A very recent example of this
madness was Ettegate, our 2007 Dance of Shame award-winning drama series. The
scandal dominated the public space so much that newspapers headlines became an
easily predictable ritual. Not even the Golden Eaglet victory, mind-boggling
bank robberies, pathetic but avoidable road accidents and the death of the
world-cup winning coach, Mr. Adeyemi Tella MON, could take the 'shine' off the
monumental pathetic ode to public decency. Do not get me wrong. I am not saying
it is wrong for particular matter to generate a hot debate, far from it. My
position is that the ethics of the public space ought to be respected when
reporting such issues: a thorough dissection of the matter in such a way that it
will rub off positively on what is happening in other areas of our national life
is what I crave for.
The ethics of public space in the words of eminent scholar, a professor of
anthropology, Prof. Olatunde Lawuyi, should allow for a temporal, situational
association, a free speech and a freedom of movement that make possible the
gathering together of a varied congregation of people and ideas which is
nevertheless united in moral support for an identity or cause. In the case of
the national public space, the cause we all ought to promote is national
development, which has unity, peace and progress as its constituents.
Unfortunately, this has not been so. Certain personalities and cyclic issues
often monopolize the public space too much without allowing for a productive
veneration nay cross-fertilization that would use the current issue as a
template to address other issues, which are vital to our growth and development
as a nation.
In the case of the example of the monopoly I gave earlier, the era of Ettegate,
the privatization of the public space thwarted the attempt by Rev. Fr. Anselm
Adodo of the Pax Herbal Clinic to introduce a very vital information that could
generate discourse that would promote public health development into our polity.
The piece which appeared in one of the national dailies was intended to alert
the health policy formulators, and indeed every Nigerian on the rising
incidences of cancer. Hear him: "…in terms of cancer, we are worried about the
rise. If we have forty patients in a day, twenty will be cancer-related
problems".
Ordinarily, such health-related revelation as this ought not to be allowed to
thin out of the public space, without generating very productive discourse on
it, in a sane system. In fact, if news and analyzed issues relating to the death
of the award-winning Coach, (a Blackman that is very tactful and knows his
onions in the round leather game compared with the white fumbler now handling
the 'superless' Eagles), Mr Yemi Tella, was accorded its rightful place in the
public space, the public would have linked the two events, Amselm revelation and
the cause of Tella's death, together.
Need I remind anyone that Coach Tella died after a protracted battle with
cancer? So, if, according to Amselm, 20 of 40 patients diagnosed in a clinic
daily is suffering from cancer-related problems, and Beko Ransome Kuti, Tyna
Onwudiwe (African Oyinbo), Tella and many non-public Nigerians have died of
cancer-related complications, what further issues ought to dominate a
well-ordered public space? Of course, it ought to be how the populace will be
educated on the menace of the disease.
Cancer, which occurs when a cell grows independently out of the body's control,
is one of the leading cause of death in the world, accounting for 12 per cent of
death. It is second only to cardiovascular disease as the cause of mortality in
the developed world. It is also in the top-five in most developing countries. In
Nigeria, for example, cancer according to the WHO's World Health Report is the
third cause of death and accounts for 9.5 per cent of all deaths. This outlined
fact, however, is not the problem. The major problem is that the public
knowledge of the disease is very poor. Researches conducted to find out the
level of knowledge of the disease among youths and middle age women at different
times by scholars such as O.G. Akinola, Moronkola O.A. and S.A. Famuyiwa between
1999 and 2004 show that public knowledge of the disease is very low, most
especially among the women who are the most hit. It therefore seems that our
public health policy is myopic as not to prioritize rightly.
Cancer is on the rampage in Nigeria. This is no news to few personnel within the
health sector for the WHO's fact quoted earlier is taken from the 1997 report.
Ten years on, we are still where we are in Nigeria: we still operate a
malfunctioned public health policy which has failed to assess rightly so as to
meet the health needs of the populations rather than individuals. The public
ought to know the meaning, types, the epidemiology state, the etiological
factors associated with cancer as well as the preventive behaviour against
cancer diseases. Of course, the few non-governmental organizations working in
this funds starved, compared to well-funded HIV/AIDS outreaches, ought to be
appreciated but more personnel and activities are needed to educate the public
on the menace of the disease.
But first, we need to sanitize our public space so as to enable public
beneficial and equal co-existence of issues that would enable thorough analysis
of such vital issues as this. Politics, we know, is the bedrock of developmental
activities, but we must be very careful so as not to allow its public space
privatization rob us of happenstances in other facet of development most
especially public health-related issues. Therefore, I will like to appeal to all
to help educate the public on the menace of cancer disease. We are two decades
behind most countries but surely, we could work wonder with the ample time we
have.
Yemi Ademowo Johnson, socio-political philosopher, bioethicist, is of the
Applied Anthropology Programme, University of Ibadan, Ibadan © 2008
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