An expert, Dr. Festus Oshoba, on Thursday said inappropriate lifestyles and other anti-social behaviour prevalent in the society account for high rate of sicknesses.
Oshoba, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, said sedentary lifestyle was responsible for 95 per cent avoidable ill health in Nigeria.
He spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing Medic West Africa Exhibition at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
NAN reports that the annual Medic West Africa Exhibition, which started on October 11, would last till October 13.
It is reputed to be the largest medical exhibition in West Africa being attended by over 300 manufacturers all over the world.
Oshoba, a fellow of West African College of Surgeon, said: “We have been talking about preventive measure as a way out of falling sick.
He said: “We will continue to advocate it. It is better to stay healthy than to manage ill health.
“Preventive healthcare should be people’s watchword and not to be looking for cheap healthcare. For example, we talk about child spacing through family planning, it is for the good of the mother.
“It keeps the mother away from unnecessary ill health as a result of bearing children, because our body age as we grow older, the organ in the body automatically depreciates.
“Child spacing will also reduce malnutrition and improve personal financing instead of making babies without adequate plan to cater for them.”
He listed other factors responsible for ill health to include what people generally engage in as habits, but injurious to their system which eventually might lead to life threatening diseases.
Oshoba said: “Other things people engage in are smoking and alcohol consumption. These are sometimes death sentences to those indulging in them. Smoking kills through lung cancer.
“There have been many advocacies against smoking, but people still smoke and the rate of lung cancer is on the increase in the society today, same thing goes to alcohol consumption.
“Too much alcohol consumption may lead to diabetes and other diseases, such as pancreatic cancer, people need to be told of this, they are in the public domain, but how many of them are listening?
“Diets is also another factor, people must watch what they eat, because there will come a time, when some foods will be toxic to the body, people also have periodic exercises too.”
Oshoba said that digital health could also reduce the cost of paying out of pockets if contacts could be made without people travelling far to receive medications or consultations they could with cell phones.
He said: “We have digital health provision now, which enables patients to reach their physicians at the comfort of their homes; this will help to reduce many things such as transportation cost and consultation fee.
“Patients can contact their caregivers through simple means such as eye detector and scan which physicians can easily interpret to know what the problem is.
“But in Nigeria, we want this digital health facilities access to be easy and affordable or go through health insurance so that it will minimise paying out of pockets.
“We also need partnership with our service providers to come out with something that will positively impact on the health of Nigerians and make the nation Eldorado’s of healthcare.”
