Medical experts say the Nigerian government remained central to all efforts aimed at curbing misdiagnosis of healthcare conditions in Nigeria.
According to the experts, while misdiagnosis is a big challenge in healthcare, tackling it would require the support of the government.
Misdiagnosis occurs when a diagnosis is missed, inappropriately delayed, or is wrong.
The expert noted that the consequences of misdiagnosis are numerous and costly, noting that delay in diagnosis prolongs patients’ suffering, increases healthcare resource utilisation and reduces trust in the healthcare system.
According to the experts, the government needs to play a major role in tackling misdiagnosis by ensuring good health policies, making healthcare accessible and affordable to people to reduce, noting that these measures will help prevent misdiagnosis and wrong treatment.
One of the experts, a Professor of Public Health and former National Chairman of the Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria, Tanimola Akande told PUNCH HealthWise that when a health condition is diagnosed wrongly, the patient will be treated wrongly, noting that this could lead to serious complications.
“The commonly misdiagnosed health condition in this environment is typhoid because when some people treat malaria and it is not relieved, they diagnose it as typhoid.
“If some people have a fever with diarrhoea and it does not respond to antimalarial, they say it is typhoid.
“Another condition that is commonly misdiagnosed is haemorrhoids (Piles) often called Jedijedi. When people have a stool with mucus, they say they have jedijedi. When the anus of a child is coming out and when the rectum pushes out a little; or if they have haemorrhoids before they pass stool, people call it jedijedi. Also, when some people have backache, they call it jedijedi.
“If you listen to those people with mobile vans advertising their drugs, you will be shocked what they call jedijedi. So, all sorts of concoctions are used for it wrongly.
“When you don’t diagnose correctly, you will treat wrongly. You will use drugs that are not appropriate for your health condition. Some of the concoctions people use wrongly for treatment have terrible effects on the body,” Tanimola said.
Tanimola stated further that it is risky to be diagnosed by incompetent health workers, alternative medicine practitioners, and to self-diagnose.
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