Chioma Obinna
6 January 2009
Lagos — Federal Government has been urged to provide enabling environment that would protect physically challenged children in the society, particularly those with down syndrome disorder, as the disease comes with several other medical problems including heart problems.
Making the call in a chat with Vanguard in Lagos, President of the Down Syndrome Association of Nigeria (DSAN) Mrs Rose Mordi lamented that most children with down syndrome and various disabilities in Nigeria die due to lack of medical care.
Stating that poverty has been the bane why so many families hid their physically challenged children, she stated that Nigerian government has no provision for the children, as a result, these children never lived a normal life.
According to her, about 400,000 Nigerians are living with Down syndrome, a congenital disorder doctors are yet to find out the cause. Mordi disclosed further that every day, at least between two or three children are born with down syndrome in Nigeria.
Lamenting lack of statistics on prevalence of diseases in the country, she said, global out of every 800 to 1000 live births, one will have Down Syndrome.
Stressing the need for the government to equipe hospitals in the country to take care of these children who normally come down with heart diseases, she said, "Instead of sourcing for fund to take these children abroad for surgeries, in a way enriching other countries' economy. We are appealing to the Federal Government to at least equip one or two hospitals to be doing this open heart surgery here in Nigeria"
"We are running a programme for these children on early medical intervention and early education amongst others. When we help in keeping them alive, we also train and empower them".
On efforts to get the attention of the Federal Government, she said "We are planing to have an audience with the ministry of health we have been trying to do this since last year but we have not been able to succeed.
This is something that is done in other countries of the world. Even Ghana here has better health system than Nigeria. Our country can afford to do this but because of political problems they have not been able t do so."
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