Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

CNN's "Cameroon’s 'Cursed' Children" Report - A Rebuttal by a Cameroonian Medical Doctor

By Valentine NGWA, St. James University Hospital - Leeds, UK

I have read with keen interest, Dr Sanjay Gupta’s take on various health related issues in the rural parts of Cameroon, initially wondering what his real intentions were. One could easily misconstrue his intentions as being Information, Education/Entertainment and Communication (IEC), which I believe are those of a genuine journalist. However, I finally realised Sanjay Gupta’s primary assignment is that of portraying Cameroon/Africa as  the origin of many of the world’s diseases; as a land where diseases easily spread from animals to man due to their supposedly close co-habitation.

Nowhere is this truer than in this article on Buruli ulcer in Akonolinga, Cameroon in which Medical science has been totally insulted;  an article which should cause anyone calling himself a trained medical doctor to bow his head in shame. And I will go on to tell you why I think so.

Cameroon’s “Cursed” Children

Dr. Sanjay Gupta - CNN Chief Medical Correspondent (Originally posted on AC360°)

In a small town called Akonolinga, which is approximately an hour outside Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, there is a strange disease going around that primarily affects children. It starts as an ulcer on the skin that quickly spreads.

Untreated, it can start to affect the bones and eventually even get into the bloodstream. If it gets to that point, there is little that can be done, and the child will often succumb to the disease. They try everything in this small village town to not let it get to that bad. They scrape away the skin, cutting out the diseased areas.

"Save My Wife" (3): How to Help

N. Kristof

When I wrote about Prudence the first time, readers reached for their wallets and asked how they could help. I’ve been thinking about it for a week, and here are some suggestions.

First, a good introduction to the world of maternal issues is the website of AMDD, the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

"Save My Wife: (2): Prudence’s Struggle Ends

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

YOKADOUMA, Cameroon: As Prudence Lemokouno lay on a hospital bed here, spitting blood, her breath coming in terrible rattles, it was obvious that what was killing her wasn’t so much complications in pregnancy as the casual disregard for women like her across much of the developing world.

Prudence's last hours (c) N. Kristof

‘Save My Wife’ [A Snapshot of Cameroon's Health System]

By Nicholas D. Kristof [New York Times]

YOKADOUMA, Cameroon: Prudence Lemokouno was lying motionless on a bed in the bleak hospital here, her stomach swelled with a fetus that had just died, her eyes occasionally flickering with fright but mostly dull and empty.

Prudence at the Yokadouma hospital (c) N. Kristof

Dr. Pascal Pipi, the lone doctor in the public hospital, said she had a few more hours to live, and then she would join the half-million women a year who die around the world in pregnancy and childbirth.

Reuters - "Cameroon May Lose all Doctors by 2009"

Reuters - Cameroon coulld lose all of its 3,000 practising doctors within three years if the Government does not act quickly to stem a brain drain in the health sector, the national doctors' association says.

"Between now and 2009, if nothing is done to stop this mass exodus, our hospitals will be empty," Professor Tetanye Okie, vice president of the ONMC association of doctors, said.

"The Government may be forced to undertake a massive recruitment of young doctors."

Why are Cameroonian Medical Doctors Leaving? (2): The Personal Journey of Dr. Valentine Ngwa

Interviewed by Dibussi Tande

“How does one continue to sacrifice when some big shots are growing fat on the spoils; the Government, the Mission - all corrupt!Sacrifice will only bear fruits when it is participatory; you sacrifice, I sacrifice." Dr. Valentine Ngwa.

Shortly after he obtained his medical degree from the University of Benin in Nigeria, Dr. Valentine Ngwa returned home to practice medicine. Then some six years later, he packed his bags for Britain where he now resides. In this interview Dr. Ngwa candidly explains why he originally went back to work in Cameroon, why he ultimately sought greener pastures abroad, and what it would take to bring him back to Cameroon:

Brain Drain: Why are Cameroonian Medical Doctors Leaving?

By Dibussi Tande

Surgery at the Fraternity Medical Center, Buea

The news from the Ministry of health was quite gloomy. In a special report that appeared in the Cameroon Tribune last week, it was announced that Cameroon’s medical system was in crisis due to a severe shortage of medical doctors resulting from the massive exodus of Cameroonian MDs to countries in the developed world.