Former President of the Nigerian Association of Nephrologists, NAN, Dr. Ebun Bamgboye, yesterday, raised the alarm that one out of seven Nigerians has chronic kidney disease, just as he advocated deceased donor programme to save chronic kidney disease patients in the country.
Bamgboye, who is the Clinical Director at St. Nicholas Hospital, said this while delivering a lecture on ‘The Evolution of Kidney Transplantation in Nigeria and the Legacy of Emeritus Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe’, at the University of Medical Sciences, UNIMED, Ondo.
The former NAN boss explained that the wastage of numerous organs daily could potentially be used to the advantage of individuals reliant on dialysis.
His words: “Chronic kidney disease is very common in our country. Over 15 per cent of people have chronic kidney disease.
“That is, for every seven people, one has kidney failure. And it is estimated that over 100 people per million people every year require kidney transplantation.
“Ideally, 22,000 people should be on dialysis, and the total number of people on dialysis is less than 5,000.
“90 per cent of people who require dialysis and don’t get it will be dead within two weeks.” So it is not surprising that so many people are dying from kidney failure.
“Kidney failure is an expensive thing to deal with. Even America spends over $40 billion. So we have to focus on prevention.
“We need to detect early and screen our population, like schoolchildren, pregnant women, and undergraduates. Let’s detect early.
“The average transplant will cost nothing less than N20 million in two years. If 20,000 people develop kidney failure every year and require a transplant, you can multiply 20,000 by N20 million, which will give you the sort of figures we are looking at. You know the country can’t afford that.”