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LVPEI fellow creates history in Nigeria!
File Photo: Dr Bade (right) at LVPEI with a patient Prof Shitu, also from Nigeria
From Vanguard Online Edition, Saturday 27, 2008. Also in Guardian and Punch (Nigeria)
UCH performs feat in eye transplant
Thirty-six years after the management of the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan performed a major operation in cornea (eye) transplant, the institution has broken the jinx as it successfully transplanted the damaged cornea of four patients.
The feat was performed in collaboration with Sight Life Foundation in United States of America. This was disclosed by the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Professor Abiodun Ilesanmi who was represented by the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee of the hospital, Dr Adeniyi Adenipekun at the hospital yesterday.
The hospital called on Nigerians to toe the path of other foreign countries where the eyes of their dead relations are donated for the benefit of those who have cornea damage.
When speaking with newsmen yesterday, Dr Adenipekun advised people not to attach too much importance to dead bodies adding that the cornea used for the operations were brought from Washington. He said, "When somebody has cornea damage, he can't see properly. So, in this procedure, we replaced what was damaged. The eye of one of the patients had already perforated and the contents were already coming out. If not for the operation, the eye would have been removed.
The first one was done in 1972 by Mrs Oyin Olurin. Since that time, we have not been able to do such a procedure. That time, UCH was the fourth in the Commonwealth. We will ensure that we occupy the position we were many years ago. The operation was led by our doctor, Dr Bade
Ogundipe".
"In Africa, we have this emotional attachment to dead bodies, but they are useless. A foreign woman whose husband died sometime ago still managed in her grief to donate the eyes of her dead husband. We would appoint some grief counselors who will counsel them", the hospital stated.
According to him, when the hospital finally succeeds in having its own eye bank, Nigerians should donate the eyes of their dead relations so that they would be useful for those who are still alive.
The doctor who led the team in performing the operation, Dr Bade Ogundipe warned people not to use any traditional method in curing any eye defects because it could be injurious to their eyes. While adducing reason for the stoppage the hospital experienced in performing eye transplant, the hospital said the brain drain syndrome and decay in infrastructure actually impeded the procedure. Though he is aware that an eye bank is being processed in Lagos, there is nothing bad in having another one in Ibadan. Among the causes of such eye defects are infection and traditional eye medication.
Dr Bade Ogundipe spent 15 months at LVPEI, Hyderabad, doing a fellowship in Cornea & Anterior Segment (January 2006 - March 2007).
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