HEALTH-NIGERIA: Taking the Knife to Burn Deformities

By Sam Olukoya Reprint | | Print |

Sam Olukoya

LAGOS, Sep 28 2004 (IPS) - An exploding kerosene lantern brought life as Jude Ogbogbo knew it to an abrupt halt, when he was seven years old. “I lit the lantern and I was about to climb a staircase when it exploded. The kerosene splashed all over my body and I was covered in flames,” he recalled in an interview with IPS.

Ogbogbo’s legs sustained severe burns in the accident, after which he was confined to bed – neither able to stand up nor walk. “He had to be physically lifted about, and it was not a convenient thing for us,” said Ogbogbo’s cousin, Helen Adarighefua.

The boy was just one victim of a spate of kerosene explosions that occurred in Edo state in south-western Nigeria in the early months of 2001 – this after kerosene mixed with petrol was sold to the public. Lanterns and stoves filled with the adulterated kerosene exploded in various homes in the state, killing 60 people and leaving 400 others with severe burns.

Apart from contending with disabilities, the victims also had to cope with society’s distaste for the ugly scars that the burns left on their bodies. “It is a pitiable sight when you see some of them,” Lucky Igbinedion, governor of Edo state, told IPS.

Okpo Osikhene, a 16-year-old whose face, chest and neck were disfigured, said that he had become something of a social outcast after his accident. “My friends decided to leave me because they can’t move with me. Maybe they think it is a shame to go out with some one like me. When people look at me, some run, while some will make jest of me,” he says.

For Mercy Idemudia, bad scars and deformity marked the end of her marriage: “My husband abandoned me right from the hospital. He has now taken another wife; he says I am no longer as beautiful as I was when he married me.”

For many of the burn victims, Nigeria’s health care facilities have typically held out few prospects of reconstructive surgery. As with many other social services, health services have become a victim of the corruption that took root in the country during years of military rule. The army governed Nigeria for 15 years until the country’s return to civilian rule in 1999.

The plight of burn victims like Idemudia and Osikhene is not unique to Edo state, however. The number of people requiring reconstructive surgery runs into several hundreds – most of whom sustained their injuries during fires which broke out when they were siphoning fuel from leaking oil pipelines.

The most serious incident of this nature took place in the southern village of Jesse in October 1998 when about a thousand people were killed, and a similar number injured.

Recently, however, the Edo state government took steps to change this situation. Late last month, medical experts from the United States were flown in to carry out reconstructive surgery on burn victims under a collaboration between Edo state government and the Body Enhancement And Reconstructive Surgery (BEARS) Foundation – based in the commercial capital, Lagos.

Thirty-six of the worst-affected victims have benefited from the first batch of operations conducted at Igbinedion University Teaching Hospital in Okada, a town three hours drive from Lagos.

“The objective was to have these people function as properly as possible. And, we looked at the area that has the most problems,” says Modupe Ozolua, who heads the BEARS Foundation.

“Are they having problems with sight, are they having problems with speech, are they having problems with moving their hands, their necks, their legs?…They should be able to move their arms, they should be able to talk: those were the most important things to us,” she adds.

The patients bear witness to the success of this approach. “I am happy, in fact I am just too happy,” says Osikhene, who was unable to move his neck properly before the surgery. For Ogbogbo, a three-hour operation on his legs has rekindled hopes that he will walk again and return to school after an absence of almost four years.

“I have the joy now that with this surgery, something will be done, and he can walk. Right now, at least the leg is stretched and he can stand up,” says Adarighefua.

The collaboration has cost about a million dollars, most of which was provided by the Edo state government. Igbinedion said the cost would have been much higher had the Americans not waived some of their fees.

Now, state officials plan to fund more operations by foreign medical experts – and to equip local health workers with the skills to continue with reconstructive surgery.

Igbinedion says foreign medical teams will train Nigerian medics in the necessary surgical techniques during future visits: “The foreign medical teams are not coming to do surgeries alone, They are also coming to teach our people how to do it and they will also leave some equipment behind."