…As citizens pay high premium for wrong reasons
Wrong treatments worsen cases
While leading his departmental meeting, a middle-aged employee complained of headache and partially collapsed.
When rushed to a nearby hospital, the doctor recommended few tests, which were carried out.
But his condition remained the same despite the tests and medications, and as expected, the doctor recommended brain scan, which is very expensive and would be carried out in another hospital.
But it took cross-examination of another doctor, a church member of the patient, to discover that it was a recurring migraine and he was discharged and brain scan averted.
From abdominal pain, chest discomfort, headache, body weakness, among other symptoms, which are misdiagnosed as cancer, cardiac issues, and other sicknesses, there are growing concerns over conflicting medical test results from private and public hospitals and medical laboratories in Nigeria in recent times.
BusinessDay’s investigation revealed that the unpleasant situation has led to untimely deaths, caused serious physiological trauma on affected patients, drain their savings, amid negative impact on the treatment and management of patients, and their general wellbeing.
According to medical experts, wrong diagnosis is when a diagnosis has been made but is incorrect.
Sadly, the trend of wrong diagnosis has become more rampant in Nigeria at the moment with serious consequences for patients.
The situation often leaves those affected confused and running from pillar-to-post to find solution.
Perhaps, an example of commonly wrong diagnoses in Nigeria is malaria, and many citizens including medical experts, decry the rate at which hospitals and medical laboratories either misdiagnose, under-diagnose or over-diagnose malaria parasites (MP).
Joy Offor, a nurse, blamed the increasing cases of wrong diagnoses of malaria results from hospitals and medical laboratories on lack of quality assurance.
“Most results we see are released with reckless abandon, with an outrageous parasite count of two plus (++) and above.
“Malaria parasite test results are hardly reproducible in Nigeria. It is debasing that if you visit three laboratories for malaria parasite tests you will get three contradictory results,” she said.
Preference for money to saving lives
Before questioning the competence of laboratory professionals, BusinessDay’s investigation also revealed that laboratories in Nigeria are set up as business, hence the owners make money according to the number of tests ran daily, whether wrong or correct diagnosis.
Nathan Asalu, a medical consultant, decried that misdiagnosis is on the increase because anybody can set up a lab or hospital and employ people to run it, with emphasis on profit instead of competence.
“We have people who own hospitals and laboratories without any medical background. The worst is pharmaceutical outfits, which are on every street in Nigeria. It boils down to business. Whatever gives good returns on investment, people go for it. But medical line, whether business or practice, should be restricted to professionals only,” he noted.
Situation questions proficiency of lab professionals
Of course, human errors in healthcare delivery pose serious threats to patients undergoing treatment.
While clinical concern is growing, many are of the opinion that there is the need for scrutiny of the working conditions in laboratories and medical personnel in such medical facilities.
Experts say that the wrong diagnosis of malaria results by hospitals lowers the confidence of clients on the credibility of the procedures employed on the tests, as much as it puts question mark on the proficiency of lab professionals.
Ife Okechi, a financial expert, blamed the ugly trend on the proliferation of medical laboratories with little or no supervision from regulatory agencies, as well as the process of becoming a laboratory professional.
“You see laboratories in almost every street now in Lagos, and most of them have little or no good facilities, even when they are making money they would not employ qualified health experts and these are the people we give our lives to,” Okechi said.
Dupe Onabanjo, a mother of three, decried that many laboratory professionals are half-baked due to the many cheap institutions offering Laboratory Science courses.
“We have four medical people in our family and they all went to good schools and some abroad. Laboratory Science, like other medical studies, requires specialised training. The government should restrict training of our core medical professionals to known universities and should as a matter of urgency, re-accredit existing ones and ban some from offering medical studies, when there is lack of capacity, personnel and facilities to offer such training,” Onabanjo urged.
Patients partly to blame
Lucy Onna, a nurse, said that part of the blame for wrong diagnosis in some instances should be on the patients.
Onna stated that many patients conceal important information, which may help in managing them because of the fear of being neglected or isolated.
She said that the situation often makes managing patients difficult, while stressing that though few medical experts often make mistakes in the process of interpreting sample test results, patients also share in the blame.
“Self-diagnosis and self-treatment are dangerous, but most patients in this part of the world will diagnose themselves and start treatment till the condition gets complicated before they start rushing to the hospital.
“It is not all the time that misdiagnosis is traceable to the laboratory or medical expert, patients often cause it,” Onna said.
Sadly, some patients hide sensitive information and wrong information from patients, according to her.
“It could either be that the patient is making up stories about a disease condition or giving little information, which will negatively impact the diagnosis result at the end of the day,” she said.
Case of negligence
Segun Okunsanmi, a 52-year-old banker, who required urgent abdominal surgery to correct a tissue, chose a hospital in France for the surgery despite the abundance of capable ones here. He noted that he was scared it may not be done well in Nigeria or other complications may arise after the surgery.
The banker said that his decision to carry out the surgery in France was also because he was initially given a wrong diagnosis of his health condition by a reputable hospital in the country, but he repeated the test twice in two private clinics and eventually the initial diagnosis turned out to be false.
“I think it is a case of negligence. Most of them don’t really take this thing seriously, sometimes forgetting that someone’s life is at stake. Maybe, it is distraction, but I think there should be consequences,” Okunsanmi said.
According to him, when a doctor, nurse or medical personnel makes such a costly mistake of giving a wrong diagnosis, it can be a traumatic one for such a person even for life, some people don’t even do another test for various reasons and live with that.
He further stated that it is time the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) put its foot down and punish culprits in a bid to sanitise the health sector.
Asalu also suggested that the government should declare an emergency over the health sector, fund it, encourage local pharmaceutical production and other medical services, and tariffs on essential medical diagnostic equipment.
“You need to pay healthcare workers well enough to boost their service delivery, curb brain drain and also enforcement regulations in the sector to curb misdiagnosis. A lab professional and others who oversaw wrong diagnosis that led to the death of a patient should be tried in a law court and punished accordingly. It is not harsh because someone died for their incompetence,” he concluded.(BusinessDay)
