How can we become empowered patients?

Dr Adaibe Offurum is the Assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is a graduate of NYU school of medicine and has been practicing and teaching medicine for about a decade.                         
EwellAfrica chatted with her about how we can improve our health and quality of living.

Ewellafrica: What do you think are some of the current issues facing patients in Africa, other than the obvious lack of infrastructure and more?

Dr Offurum: One of the problems is the God complex that some physicians have and patients have about their doctors, believing and acting as if they are above error and mistake. This idea is perpetuated by lack of choice, people don’t get second opinions because they simply don’t have the options. But even in Africa, where resources are limited. You still have the internet and other resources and people can be more empowered. They are definitely becoming more motivated and informed.

EwellAfrica: Would you say that part of problem is our mindset?

Dr Offurum: In Nigeria, we don’t tend to think longevity, we tend to have a fatalistic view of life, we almost don’t expect to live long and we don’t feel like as if we have control over our lives. We feel very powerless and as such we don’t pursue wellness actively. However as a patient you have more power than you realize. There are simple steps you can take to improve your health and ask the right questions and get better information from your health care providers can really make a difference long term.

Here is Dr Offurum’s list of eight things you can do to impact your health care positively.

1. Be an active participant in your health. Understand you are paying for a service, so whatever dynamic you may feel between doctor and patient in Africa or in the Diaspora, you should recognize your own value. You have a right to ask questions and make sure you have a full understanding of what the doctor is telling you.
2. It is important to ask when you do a check up to ask the doctor what test do I really need, as opposed to what kind of test do you all have ( the more empowered you are the more forthright a doctor is because a more open dialogue actually helps the doctor practice better medicine. If you don’t ask questions and share information the doctor is ill equipped to help you.
3. If you have been diagnosed with something chronic like diabetes or hypertension, you really need to have a thorough discussion of what medication is best for you based on cost, lifestyle etc. If cost is an issue, then be honest about it, if it is not you should also be clear about that because pharmaceutical cost varies.
4. Focus on your own health and wellness. Regardless of the gaps in our healthcare system, Nigeria may still need to progress in the care of trauma care, heart disease and cancer to name a few areas of opportunity, each individual still needs be accountable for what how they actively impact their health. Healthy eating and moderate exercise can go a long way towards living well.
5. Symptom awareness. We tend to only focus on extreme symptoms in Nigeria, as in symptoms that are difficult to live with, such as high fevers, difficulty breathing and more. That is when we go to the hospital.  At which point you might already be quite severely compromised, so recognize the earlier you react to symptoms, the better the chance of you being alive but also you will likely create a more conducive atmosphere for a positive health care experience.
6. Self treatment is a major problem in Africa. People tend to see the doctor only after their attempts at diagnosing and self treatment are futile, at which point the symptoms may have even worsened and care may be complicated by the fact that the patient has ingested various medications both pharmaceutical and herbal that they may not be forthcoming about, possibly resulting in drug interactions and more.
7. You have to trust that God is working through your health care providers, if you trust the doctors, let your faith also allow the doctor to provide the right care for your illness. So if the doctors say you require interventions for example a cesarean section, give them room to take care of you properly. It is the hardest thing to address because our cultural and religious values can be hard to deviate from, especially because there are doctors out there that practice bad medicine, so it is a tough call. Ultimately trust your instincts as you pray and have faith in your beliefs.
8. Your insides are actually more important as your outsides! We need to retrain our society. People invest so much money on cosmetics and fashion to improve the way they look on the outside as opposed to beautifying the inside. If people realize how much the way you take care of your internal is reflected on the external. If you put the right nutrients into your body, your skin will glow, your hair will shine and you wouldn’t need to spend half as much money on these creams and weaves and so on. A beautiful person is a healthy person and that should be all of our goals.