Experts Laud Research to strengthen Cleft and Surgical Care in Nigeria

Medical experts have expressed optimism that the hybrid research training initiated for middle and senior-level researchers by the National Surgical, Obstetric, Anaesthesia and Nursing Plan (NSOANP) for Nigeria in collaboration with Smile Train (a cleft charity organisation) and SearchAnWrite (a research and innovation organisation) will unravel more effective protocols of cleft care and other surgical conditions in the country.

The experts who spoke separately in Abuja during the ongoing 2nd edition of the 5-day training all stressed importance of research in healthcare.

Recall that the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Health had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Smile Train to train researchers in medical fields as well as offer grants for research to generate reliable data.

Research has over the years not received the desired attention in Nigeria to guarantee effective intervention in any sphere. Experts say foreign organisations are mostly relied upon to access basic data. However, improved funding and scaling up of skills of the indigenous researchers could change this narrative.

Speaking at the event, Obstetrician/Gynaecologist, and Research Methods and Biostatic Consultant, Dr Gbenga Olorunfemi, who served as one of the faculty/facilitators stressed that medicine evolves and the only way to better the practice is through research.

“As medical doctors and consultants, every day we see and manage patients but for us to be able to get the next set of innovations, and the next set of things to do for the patients, we need to go back and review what has been done before and subsequently improve on what we have done before. That is research but most of us don’t have the skillsets for good research.

“This is what has made the difference between the high-income countries and the developing countries like Nigeria. In developed countries, there is a high level of research that goes into healthcare every day to renew the level of whatever they do. And most times, we just borrow technology from them. Unfortunately, these borrowed technologies are not locally contextualized and don’t fit into what we do here due to financial constraints and social perception. So we need to come up with research skills to review what we do here and be able to come out at international conferences and say this is what we have been able to do and they could even learn from us.

“The essence of this training is to enlighten participants on the need for quality data generation. Trainees here are supposed to do a step-down and retrain their respective constituents. After this programme, they are expected to write grant proposals.”

Also speaking on the importance of research, Chief Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at National Hospital Abuja, and Coordinator for the training, Prof. Emmanuel Ameh, agreed that it is a step in solving the challenge of data which is essential in providing quality surgical care.

“One of the challenges we have in this country is that we do not have reliable and complete data which has been a problem over the years. And without data, even policymaking is a problem. So what we are trying to do is to train not only doctors but all those involved in comprehensive cleft care. Here, you will see obstetricians, maxillofacial surgeons, plastic surgeons, anaesthetists, nutritionists, nurses, and ENT surgeons, so it’s a mix of different groups and specialities.

“The aim is to train them to do good research, so that at the end of the day they will be able to generate reliable data that can be translated into improving the quality of cleft care, finding solutions to some of the causes of the problems we have, designing ways of reducing the incidence of these surgical problems, and eventually influence government and policymakers to allocate more resources to surgical care since you can’t ask for more resources when you don’t know what is on the ground,” Prof Ameh noted.

He further disclosed that the benefits of the first training were already manifesting adding that more training centres would be added.

“The first training was quite successful because we achieved all the objectives we set out to achieve. And after the first training, Smile Train put up a call for grant proposals, and six of the eleven people we trained submitted grant applications, three of them were awarded out rightly. The remaining three were asked to just make some corrections. So all of them were successful in winning the grants which address one of the major problems we have because most researches done by healthcare professionals in this region are self-sponsored”.

“One of the other things that we set out to achieve was to begin to gradually expand our research capacity. One of the participants at the last training is now one of the resource persons because of her exceptional performance. We hope that more trainees will become trainers in their respective places”.

Smile Train Vice-President and Regional Director for Africa, Mrs Nkeiruka Obi, earlier while declaring the training open restated the organization’s commitment to developing comprehensive cleft care.

To this end, Mrs Obi explained that Smile Train has set aside a significant amount of money to fund grants and research on cleft care adding that data was critical.

“Research is a spectrum, so we are looking at the preventive measures, treatment models/protocols, the rehabilitative aspect of cleft care given the fact that the moment a baby is discovered to have a cleft, research will pick it through prenatal diagnosis, when the child is born, then the child will undergo surgery and so on.”

She further explained that as a demonstration of Smile Train commitment to research around clefts it has supported the Federal Government in developing a cleft and surgery e-registry, designed to capture comprehensive data on clefts and other surgical conditions in the country.

According to her, the e-registry which happens to be the first on the African continent, would provide a good referral and surveillance system to ensure early detection and identification of clefts or other congenital conditions in children, create a robust platform to track cases of clefts especially in communities and allow families to access adequate information on available treatment options.