The Sick and The Vulnerable

There is cholesterol around your liver’, He said, as he turned the knob on a microscope-like device. ‘Is it dangerous?’ I asked, looking worried. ‘No. Unless it accumulates’, He said rather comfortingly.
Next, I was made to see my spine. On the screen, he pointed to an area of my spine where blood was congested. My brain, as I was told, was normal.
To my utter shock, my stomach was riddled with holes. But that did not portend as much fatality as the many piles I was shown on the screen. Maybe it was because he had a cure for the latter, hence his decision to paint such a gloomy picture. ‘Can you help me get rid of these?’ I asked rather soberly.
‘Yes’, he said with a grin.

There is a big vessel that runs from the spine to the anus,’ He continued. ‘When you sit for a long time, it becomes congested, and this cause piles’, He said. To prevent it, you should not take slimy soups…’ He started to say, but was interrupted by me.

‘Do you mean I can’t take ayoyo?’ I exclaimed.

“No’, He started. ‘You can take ayoyo, but avoid fresh okro’, He said with another grin. (Ayoyo soup is my favourite)

The effect of piles, as this diagnostician put it, includes waist pain, sexual weakness, headache and thigh pains.

Our next stop was my chest region. At the sight of some strange structures, I pointed to the screen which doubled as a TV. I was told those were my ribs.

All this while I was looking around this room which measured about 4m x 4m, with only 2 seats; one for me and all other clients and another for the operator or doctor or diagnostician, eh , call him whatever you want.

‘Do you have any problem with your heart?’ He asked, as he pointed at a ‘blood vessel’. After about 30 seconds of deep thought, I said, ‘I don’t have any problem with my heart’. But he still pointed to cholesterol on the screen anyway. In light of this, I was advised against taking a lot of fatty foods. He also told me not to eat too late at night to avoid a fatal accumulation of cholesterol. I was also shown some clotted blood in my blood vessels.

At this juncture, I had indeed become an encyclopaedia of diseases!

But this bleak outlook did not amaze me as much as two things-firstly, the simplicityof the equipment used in giving me this panoramic view of almost all of my internal structures and secondly, the number of gullible clients who would had have been hoodwinked into believing a well-rehearsed pack of untruths. For this ‘safari’, I had to pay just 7cedis. Amazing, isn’t it? Especially if u have ever had to endure large amounts of X-rays at the hands of a CT scan, just to get some difficult to interpret films at a huge cost.

Next, I was given a list of four drugs, the first two of which was to treat my piles, while the second two were to take care of my cardiovascular system and cholesterol problem, if I remember correctly. The total cost of these drugs, was a whopping 94cedis.

Now to the equipment used. When I entered the room, the operator was watching a programme on television: the same television which was later to show all those vital organs. There was what looked very much like a microscope with a receptacle to accommodate a finger, the portal through which to see my internal structures. My ring finger was made wet by liquid the operator applied. I could not make it out by smelling it. Then I was asked to place my finger in a receptacle, then he turned a knob to make it a bit tight. Then finally, there was light. It was shone on my finger.

Voila! The journey then began. When I asked whether I was being exposed to X-rays, the operator answered in the negative. ‘So is it normal light?’ I asked. He answered in the negative, yet stopped short at telling me what form of rays he was exposing me to. Because I was undercover to ‘ANASlyse’ what transpired at this diagnostic centre, I did not want to be too inquisitive so as not to blow my cover.

Now to what inspired this undercover mission.

When I went home, my cousin told me of how he had gone to this extraordinary diagnostic centre and how his internal structures had been shown to him on a screen. His diagnosis was no different from mine, but his prescription cost more, about 140 cedis.

He had spent over 100cedis seeking a cure for his health condition, after western medicine had failed him. Mind you, the only place to acquire the drugs they prescribe is from them and them alone. My younger brother upon hearing about the supernatural abilities of their wonderful non-invasive equipment went too. He was told the same story and given a similar list of expensive drugs. Well, he doubted the veracity of their diagnosis too.

Can we imagine the number of vulnerable people who have patronised this facility? Mind you, their huge records’ book was about 1/10th full. It is common knowledge that the definite diagnosis of piles is by sigmoidoscopy. If such a simple, non-invasive equipment as was used and is still being used by this diagnostic centre is genuine, should not current medical practice have adopted it long ago? I’ve witnessed the passing of Upper GI Endoscopes, and the great discomfort patients go through just so that a Doctor can see the lining of the GI tract to determine whether it is intact or has been breached, is a pitiful sight.

Reports carried by the media about a year ago, indicated the absence of a regulatory body to ensure the compliance of Medical Laboratories to standard practices. Do such diagnostic centres fall under the supervision of such a non-existent regulatory body? If I decide to report their activities, and I sincerely do want to, who do I report to?

Obviously, I went there to ascertain what my gullible cousin had been told. How many more such poor, suffering members of our community will fall prey to such people? I would not be as enraged as I am now, if all they did was sell their products like many other herbal practitioners do, but to tell me and all others the same pack of lies and on top of that sell their expensive drugs to us, is the height of impunity.

Now, I just finished praying in a mosque on Friday, and before I left an announcement was made. To my utmost surprise it was personnel of the samediagnostics centre I encountered in Tamale, telling us they were outside the mosque to screen us. They had the temerity to come to the Garrison mosque, so close to KATH that I could not help but applaud them for their audacity.Obviously I was curious. I looked at paper they were giving out and the address I saw was that of Tamale’s office at Aboabo. It was the same ‘Keiko’ microscope, but the screen was a flat-screen PC monitor. I really wish I could do something then. But what was I to do?

Before I went to Tamale, I stayed transiently in Accra. In a rickety trotro I boarded from Korle-Bu to circle, one man caught my attention. Initially I thought he was an ‘Evangelist Oduro’, but I was soon to realise otherwise. He told us the benefit of reducing our blood cholesterol level. He told us foods to avoid. He admonished us strongly and I was impressed by how passionate he was. He sounded like he was doing it for nothing at all, so that although he got some of his facts wrong, I realised that in scaring us the more about the dangers of an elevated blood cholesterol level even on a wrong premise, his end would eventually justify his means.

But seriously, this gaffe cannot go unmentioned. After outlining the many dangers associated with cholesterol, he told us, a very attentive women dominated audience how cholesterol could cause fibroid. He said with a rise in cholesterol, you can have a deposit in your womb as fibroid.

Then from his black bag he took out some small bottles and offered them as a solution to the cholesterol problem. Well, we had just reached Circle, so I alighted without knowledge of the success or otherwise of his catchy advertising tactic.

If I wasn’t a medical student with some knowledge of my own, would I not have swallowed the words of these people hook, line and sinker? So let’s imagine the number of patrons these people have had over the years. I am not so naïve as to say that all alternative sources of good health are bad, but clearly, some are too good to be true. Okay, so maybe I should consider a topic along the lines of my experiences for my community health project in fifth year. SALAAM.

Natogmah Abukari Yakubu (NAY)

MBChB 1