By Cheryl Farrar
MyNewsOK contributor

 
Cheryl Farrar Sept 04 at 240 lbs. 1 month before Pituitary surgery
Community Photo By: Linda Laxson
Submitted By: cheryl,

More Photos

Meri (drmeriftr on the boards) found this most interesting article about Emory's Dr. Oyesiku:

http://www.independentng.com/saturday/lsapr010603.htm 

Nigerian Medical Doctors As Life Savers In US

By Emmanuel Ukudolo

Correspondent, Lagos

The confidence Nigerians have in the nation’s healthcare sector is waning by the day not necessarily due to a dearth of qualified medical personnel, but the paucity of requisite tools needed for world-class practice. In the alternative, Nigerians are jetting out in droves, seeking quality healthcare services from those acclaimed to be the best in the United States of America. But ironically, these specialised professionals were never brought up in the US. They are full-fledged Nigerians, trained in Nigerian universities, but driven out of the shores of Nigeria due to the unfavorable circumstances that the medical profession has found itself.

However, while it is easy for some to jet out for the best of medical attention, millions at home continue to harbor ailments that could take their life in a matter of days. In the first place, accurate diagnosis, in some cases is not even guaranteed and when the ailments have been positively identified, solutions might just be across the equator, as the necessary tools to work with may not be available. Perhaps, the sad story is better illustrated with the experience of Mrs. Tina Iyabode Osuoji.

By Nigerian standard, she wouldn’t pass as a pauper. She is a mogul of international repute. Her husband, Dr. Roland Osuoji is a pediatric surgeon at Libra Hospital, Surulere, Lagos and extends his services to five other hospitals including, the popular Havana, Ultimate, Topaz and Omni.

But the world came crumbling at his very feet, when he discovered that his amiable jewel was going through a rather strange ailment. "She started adding excessive weight, getting weak and eating too much. She would bruise herself easily, while the wound would take a long time to heal", Mr. Osuoji told Saturday Independent.

 Worried by these developments, he took her to a lab in Victoria Island, Lagos where secondary hypothyroidism was diagnosed.  "I thought it was a pituitary problem, but the diagnosis was confirmed by another Lab before I took her to Ilorin", Osuoji revealed.  But the result was not different either. Dr. Ositelu who treated her initially referred the family to Dr. Akinmokun, an endocrinologist who talked her into doing blood sugar test.

"She did it and the blood sugar level was high". It was then that he was told that his wife had Cushing’s Syndrome. "We sent the diagnosis for confirmation and eventually we did what you call MRI in Radmed and it came out to be macro-adenoma of the pituitary".

The ailment, he said gave his wife diabetics, hypertension and obesity. But through Hon. Tam Brisibe with whom he plays golf, he got in touch with Mr. Bode Augusto who assured him that Dr. Nelson Oyesiku, reputed as one of the best Neurosurgeons in the world, practicing in Atlanta could easily solve the problem.

Dr. Oyesiku was an old boy of St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, who studied Medicine at then University College Hospital, Ibadan before jetting out to the US where he specialised in Neuro-surgery. He is currently a Professor of Neuro-surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, in the US.

After identifying where solution to his wife’s problem could be found, the issue became how to raise fund for the US trip. But he and his wife did not wait long as Niyi Latinwo and a group of friends within the Ikeja golfing community and outside contributed an initial sum that facilitated the trip to Atlanta. 

Getting in touch with Oyesiku was however the next obstacle. Dr. Emma Okafor, President, Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) living in Cleveland Ohio, got in touch with Dr. Bato Amu, Osuoji’s course mate at the University of Nigeria’s Medical School, Enugu through whom the search for this illustrious son of Nigeria was simplified.

Amu contacted Oyesiku who asked Dr. Osuoji to come over with the wife to America, vowing to do the operation "free of charge". Without promising to accommodate him and his wife, Amu informed him of the need to get an international driver’s license ready since no one would do the driving for him.

"That was how I abandoned my kids, my busy practice, abandoned the golf I love so much and took off to Atlanta via London". A beneficiary of his mother’s philanthropy accommodated the family.  "She gave us accommodation and a car to use", confessed Osuoji. 

Dr.Biyi Odugbesan, another Nigerian Endocrinologist practising in the US confirmed the diagnosis before the result was forwarded to Dr. Oyesiku.

"The first operation was very successful but later developed what is called Saddle Pulmonary Embolism, a problem which if five people have, only one or two will survive. ‘I would have brought back a coffin to Nigeria but the operation was successful". But he told our reporter that there were complications as she had three leaks before the problem was finally solved. We spent five months in Atlanta living on charity", he confessed almost in tears. Besides he had to drive illegally for two months when his license expires. 

His Anger

 "The person that referred us to Oyesiku is a Nigerian, the Endocrinologist is a Nigerian. What we lack here is an enabling environment. Look at the trauma we went through. I drove illegally when my driver’s license expired and had to live on charity. I don’t know how else to convey this message".

Dr. Osuoji wants President Olusegun Obasanjo’s led government to create an enabling environment for good medical practice to thrive in Nigeria. "You can see what is happening here; you bring equipment here, light is not constant, the equipment gets destroyed. We brought in a scan machine in 1988 at the cost of  $1million but it got damaged".

Speaking on her experience, Mrs. Tina Iyabode Osuoji, (the patient) said every doctor she met in the US was highly specialised, "the good doctors the white people were talking about were Nigerians and I started crying. And I said if we have such good doctors there, why do we have to travel several miles to enjoy their services, why are they there and we are dying at home. If things were right, of course, they would be at home", she emphasised adding that all the Nigerian doctors she met were always saying, "home is home".

"There was just not a single soul that told me oh, I liked being here. They will say, ‘you people are enjoying. You don’t know what you have. We wish we were at home, even the doctors that we are saying have so much money to play around with there’’’, she pointed out. Mrs. Osuoji wants people out there to talk to government so that it could face the medical aspect of the nation and she is ready to go any extent to persuade all within reach to get this message across to those in government.

She is angry that one of the doctors who summoned the courage to come to Nigeria was forced to return to the US. "Now, he is looking after other people, I will say that because Oyinbos (whites) are other people. He is taking good care of them and they love him so much", she owned up. 

For now, her concern is the millions of Nigerians that may not be as lucky as she was. "What if I did not rally round, what if relations did not rally round for me. Would I have had this opportunity? I could have died like that. Before I left Nigeria, I did not know Oyesiku, I had never met him and I had never heard about him until that time".  Oyesiku honoured his part of the bargain but the family still has to pay $19,000(N2, 660,000) as hospital fees, $4000 (N560, 000) as MRI fees and about $2,500 (N350, 000) for other investigations. "When the complications came calling, the bill exceeded $200,000 (N28 million) which was written off by the hospital", Osuoji revealed.

 Besides, Dr. Odugbesan, whom she had to see before the Neurosurgeon, was a Yoruba man who equally proved to be another Good Samaritan.  "On hearing that I am from Nigeria, he asked me to come to the clinic. The first day we paid for the card and everything, but thereafter, everything was free. But when we were leaving my husband said, Dr. Odugbensan, can we have your bill? He said when I come to Nigeria, you can buy me groundnut. Can you imagine that? Out there, they strive for their brothers and sisters, they do as much as they can for Nigerians that come there but they are eager to come home but what can they work with", she empathised.

On Oyesiku’s impeccability when it comes to his area of specialisation, Mrs. Osuoji said his black American secretary reported that patients from all over the world were visiting Oyesiku. "She told me that he does about 1000 transphenoidal adenomectomics (brain operations) in a year and in fact, he is so sure of himself. She added that everybody she told that her doctor was Oyesiku replied she’d got the best. She wondered why she would have to travel if Oyesiku was practicing in Nigeria.

But beyond the treatment, she had to buy drugs of $900 (N126, 000) per week, which she said were less expensive in Nigeria. Do you know that at the fourth operation, the bill was already $200,000 (N28 million) after the one we had managed to pay for the initial operation? My husband wrote them that "I don’t have any money but I will pay this bill till I die. I want to pay it even if it is $50 (N7000) every month, I will be sending it from Nigeria because you have at least saved this woman’s life. Do you know that they asked him to send for his pay slip? He called and they sent it by DHL. On the table there, they converted his monthly salary into dollars and said: "Is this what you earn? You said you are a surgeon like Oyesiku and you are receiving this money that is even not enough for our cleaner", they queried.

Stunned by their discoveries, they asked Dr. Osuoji to go with his money and immediately placed his ailing wife under charity. "Every clinic I attended before I left 2nd of March was just charity. Once I approached the clinic, they would punch the computer, what doctor are you seeing? I would tell them. For other people, they would say, where is your insurance at least for the payment. But mine is just charity and that is when they attend to me better and be shaking my hands, ‘Get well soon Mrs. Osuoji’, and they would pet me".

Having survived this far, her desires is for the government of Nigeria to bring Nigerian doctors back home so that they can train the young ones coming up. "If they can’t bring them home then the young ones coming up should be encouraged by turning things around for good", she advised.

Throughout her five months stay, she never lacked anything. "Most of the people that helped were our classmates. Once they heard, the next thing they did was to send down money and I asked them why. But they told me: when you were a student, you were so nice that you could pluck out your eyes for other people, and they said it was now time for them to reward me", she relieved. This same spirit of generosity she argued could also have accounted for the unparalleled prosperity in America.