Specialists should run health related NGOs – APLSCD coordinator

THE National coordinator of the
Association of People Living with Sickle
Cell Disorder (APLSCD), Aisha Maureen
Edward said running health-related
agencies should not be an all-comers
affair.
She said only persons trained specifically
for particular health conditions should be
allowed to run them, especially the ones
that concern sickle cell disorder.
Edward who spoke during a meeting with
the Chief Medical Director of Nnamdi
Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi,
Anambra State and other medical
specialists who have a stake in sickle cell
disorder, bemoaned the intrusion of
unethical persons parading as NGO offi­
cials and defrauding persons with health
challenges.

She debunked rumours that she was
fighting NGOs so that her association
would be the only one managing sickle
cell patients, noting that she would not
even be able to manage all the sickle cell
cases at hand.
She maintained that she was only against
the fraudulence and exploitations that had
been the order of the day under the guise
of sickle cell oriented NGOs. She cited
several cases whereby NGOs, medical
doctors and others use the name of gov­
ernment to hoodwink and swindle sickle
cell disorder patients.
She enumerated some of the challenges
APLSCD still encounter, while rec­
ommending measures the medical
specialists could employ to aid the
association in its bid to improve the lot of
sickle cell patients.
The coordinator frowned at the exorbitant
cost of medical management of sickle cell
patients,alleging that even some medical
consultants in government hospitals who
own private hospitals collect exorbitant
rates from her members.
Edward observed that the high cases of
drug addiction amongst sickle cell
patients was as a result of the pain they
experience frequently.
She explained that after she got
rehabilitated from her own drug addiction
bouts, she discovered that it was the
psychological therapy she received that
played the primary role of rehabilitating
her.
Edward, therefore. prayed that the
Medical Director looked into assigning stu­
dent psychologists to carry out their
internship with sickle cell patients.
While noting that sickle cell patients suffer
rejection, inferiority complex, low self-
esteem, stigmatisation, she lauded
clergymen for their support.
“The psychological solace APLSCD gets in
pockets are from clergymen which they
offer for free,” she said.
She called on government to support
such helpful clergymen, even as she
appealed for chaplains from different
denominations to be attached to the
association.