PUNCH Healthwise learnt that given the financial requirements that came with managing the condition, the Ogar’s income was never enough to pay for private care as the children grew up, and this resulted in them falling sick quite often and sometimes needing separate rooms at the hospital, which were quite expensive at the time.
Presently, Amokeye and her brother no longer see the condition as a fun-robbing childhood memory. At 34 and 30, respectively, they have grown into healthy adults and don’t look sickly. “Even when I am in the private hospital, consultants are brought from government hospitals and I get to pay a fee to be seen. The fees range from N15, 000 to N25, 000, depending on the consultant. If there is a need to see a cardiologist, I will spend between N25, 000 to N30, 000, and this excludes the fee for test or medication.
“I want to give others who see SCD as a death sentence, hope. I do that with a smile on my face, to remind them that they can live a happy, fulfilled life in spite of sickle cell and its struggles.”According to the SCFN, one in every four persons is a healthy carrier of the sickle cell gene and sickle cell disorder is by far the commonest inherited disorder in the world, with three-quarter of cases occurring in Africa.
“Survival of these children beyond childhood is largely dependent on their access to appropriate care and as most of them are born into poor underprivileged families, very few of them survive childhood,” Akinyanju said.Meanwhile, experts say that widespread genetic counselling and prenatal diagnosis can help to reduce births of children with the disorder.
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