by Lara Adejoro,
Access to life-saving healthcare services for persons with disabilities remains elusive in Lagos, despite the state starting a new health insurance scheme for them, LARA ADEJORO reports.
The sight of 36-year-old Miss Daniel evokes feelings of pity and anguish for most people that come across her. This is because, Daniel, a person with albinism, is daily enduring severe pains as a result of the cancerous growth on her right cheek and nose.
Each time she groans in pain, her two brothers who cannot fathom why their sister cannot access the health service needed to offer her a breather also cry along with her.
“The pain is usually unbearable; the people that live with me can tell,” she narrated. “I will be lying flat on the floor while crying. Had it been that you came yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you because I was in serious pain.”
“Sometimes, I hide it from my family members and I will not want to express the intensity of the pain. But, at times, it will be so terrible that I will cry and they cry along with me,” she told PUNCH HealthWise, in her one-room apartment.
Like many with albinism, a genetic condition in which people are born without the usual pigment in their bodies, Daniel is predisposed to the constant ravages of skin cancer.
And because she cannot afford the astronomical cost associated with regular treatment, as advised by her doctors, the cancerous growth on her face has turned into a septic wound that now covers almost all of her right cheek, spreading further to her ear and gradually affecting her right eye.
Daniel told our correspondentthat to save her the embarrassment of irritated glances, she has resorted to wearing a wig at home and whenever she is going out.
She will also tie a scarf to shield the wound on her face from the scorching sun.
According to a Consultant Clinical Radiation Oncologist at the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority-Lagos University Teaching Hospital Cancer Centre, Idi-Araba, Dr. Adedayo Joseph, the lack of melanin and sunlight predisposes people with albinism to skin cancer.
“For people with albinism, we always tell them to wear sunscreen because they have extreme sun sensitivity.
“They don’t have melanin and they are now living in a country where they spend a greater part of the year exposed to sunlight,” Dr. Joseph said.
Although the Lagos State Special People’s Law, which was enacted in 2010, stipulates in section 32, subsection 2 that “Persons living with a disability shall be entitled to free medical and health care services in all public health institutions,” the majority of persons with disabilities in the state still rely on the benevolence of families and kind-hearted Nigerians to stay alive.
For Daniel, her church has been responsible for her chemotherapy session, tests and medications at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, where she is a regular patient.
However, while the state government boasts that it is offering free healthcare to people with disabilities across the state through its Health Insurance Scheme, PUNCH Healthwise found that albinos who are vulnerable to skin cancer and blindness cannot use the new policy to treat these categories of disease conditions.
The benefits package covered by the scheme, as seen by our correspondent, does not cover some important peculiar ailments affecting persons living with albinism or blindness, and other genetic disorders.
And that’s not about the only unexciting travail of persons with disabilities in Lagos.
According to PUNCH HealthWise findings, many persons with disabilities across different clusters who have subscribed to the free health insurance scheme since it was introduced in February 2021, are yet to get their policy activated.
According to The Albino Foundation, the prevalence rate of albinism in Nigeria is ranked amongst the highest in the world, with an estimated population of over two million albinos living in the country.
“By implication, people living with albinism in Nigeria represent one of the largest vulnerable groups in the country today. Despite their stated vulnerability and strength in number, and unlike other vulnerable groups in Nigeria, they least enjoy the same level of special attention, security and support from governments at all levels in the country,” the foundation noted.
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