Professor Muhammad Akanbi Nurudeen Adeboye, a Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara state, who delivered his inaugural lecture on Thursday, September 14, 2023, has called for criminalization of child abuse.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned that it was the institution’s 241st inaugural lecture and it was titled ‘Myriads And Hazy Qualms In The Child’s Global Health And The Brain’.
Professor Adeboye, who lamented that medical brain drain has negatively affected healthcare delivery care system in the country, noted that this has made the citizens including the children to bear the brunt. He has however proffered solutions to the problem.
Healthcare professionals leaving the country has according to him become a worrisome development and he has therefore listed steps that can be taken to correct the situation to include professional skill improvement , introduction of incentives to motivate and retain health workers, higher wages and better opportunities and security of lives and property.
He also explained the meanings of ‘ja’, ‘japa’, ‘japada’ and ‘japadawa’
‘Ja means to escape albeit , on temporary basis , even though without knowing what next. ‘japa’ means to flee with an intention not to ever return. ‘japada’ means to return out of frustration from where one has hitherto escaped to.
‘Japadawa’ is to deliberately return after a well -planned and well -executed migration so as to cultivate, nurture and develop the system back home’ he said.
The professor of Paediatrics and child health also talked about understanding and managing pain in the children.
‘Pain is one of the most common symptoms experienced the world over.
It has always received the needed attention and care in the adult but not until recently among the children.
Pain is both a sensory and an emotional experience .in older children, the character, location, quality, duration frequency, and intensity of their pain can be assessed, behavior and physiologic signs are though useful, but can be misleading.
A child who is experiencing significant chronic pain may play ‘normally’ in order to distract attention from the pain he is feeling. This coping behavior is sometimes misinterpreted as evidence of the child ‘faking’ pain at other times.
The theories, pathways transmission regulations, classification, assessment scales and the treatment of paediatric pain and practical issues that arise from the use of pharmacologic analgesic in the children were also reviewed and highlighted’ he said.
That was not all; Professor Adeboye also touched on the myths about pain in the children.
‘ Infants cannot feel pain because their nervous system is immature. The true situation is that there is considerable maturation by 26 weeks of gestation; nociceptive pathways to the central nervous system are myelinated by about gestation 30 weeks. Descending inhibitory pathways develop later than afferent excitatory pathways. Extremely pre-term infants can localize and withdraw from noxious stimuli. Neonates exhibit behavioral, physiological and hormonal responses to pain.
An active or sleeping child is not in pain. The true situation is that pain may result in ‘exhausted’ sleep. Children may read, play or watch TV to distract themselves from the pain. Children are particularly good at using distraction as coping mechanism.
Children always tell the truth about pain. This may not be true because children are scared of injections. Younger children may feel that pain is a punishment for doing something wrong. Onset of pain may be gradual, so the child does not realize he or she has a pain until it has been alleviated.
Children cannot describe and locate their pain. McGrath reports children as young as 18 months being able to report their pain verbally and localize it. Children as young as three years old have used self- report tools to describe and locate their pain. Children can demonstrate on an outline of the body where they feel pain without knowing the names of the body parts’ he submitted.
Professor Muhammad Akanbi Nurudeen Adeboye has also stated the need to raise awareness on immunization while urging government at all levels to adequate fund healthcare system.
He has also called for the establishment of National Newborn Screening programme, introduction of poverty reduction programmes , and criminalization of child abuse.
The inaugural lecture held at the main auditorium of the university was attended by traditional rulers including the Oloro of Oro Kingdom Oba Abdulrafiu Olaniyi Oyelaran I , and the Elesie of Esie, Oba Agboola Ibraheem Babalola.
– Team@orientactualmags.com
Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980. Thank you
