The medical director of SUN Medical Diagnostics, Onitsha, Dr. Paul Lewis Ezeukwu, has listed poor diet, self-medication, lack of comprehensive medical check-up and lack of exercise by people as the major cause of deaths among Nigerians.
Ezeukwu, who is a Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Philadelphia, United States
of America said in Onitsha that Nigerians eat too much of white food which are mainly starch and carbohydrates and these cause diabetes.
According to Ezeukwu, Nigerians also indulge in self-medication not minding that every drug taken has some effect after.
Many do not undertake comprehensive medical check-up and do not do exercises that will prolong their life, he added.
While lamenting that Nigerians take better care of their automobiles than themselves, Ezeukwu said in an interview to mark one year of the diagnostic centre located within the premises of Onitsha General Hospital that he has also embarked on protests and has started collecting petitions to press home the need for a regulated medical practice in Nigeria.
He said that it was wrong for medical doctors to overact themselves and attend to patients in cases outside their areas of specialization.
The purpose of collecting the petitions among doctors he said, is to use them to confront the Federal Ministry of Health to do the right thing and regulate medical practice both for orthodox medical practitioners and non orthodox alike.
The content of the petitions which medical doctors sign for according to him is: " I am in support of regulation of medical practice in Nigeria", and the petition bears the name and phone number of the doctor.
Ezeukwu who runs one of the most sophisticated medical laboratories whose many tests are analysed in the USA said the idea of the Diagnostic centre arose from his experience when his father died of prostrate cancer due to inaccurate laboratory results from Nigeria.
His mother nearly suffered the same fate, he continued, because whereas Nigerian laboratories could not detect a lump in one of her breasts, when she came to the USA, it was detected and that saved her life.
He said that Nigerian medical practice is poor because it is practiced in a broken system, where anything goes without checks.
He blamed many deaths among Nigerians on the so-called computer laboratory by hospitals which has not qualified staff "and who are too economical with human life".
According to him, with medical equipment very expensive, many hospitals retain obsolete equipment and medical doctors prefer to build high rise buildings rather than replace the equipment in their hospitals.
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