FG urged to commence treatent on albino cancer patients

By Ene Ikpa

The founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Albino foundation Mr Jake Epelle has called on the federal Government to embark on treatment on Albino skin cancer patients.
Epelle disclosed this at a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja.
According him,’the Albino foundation is not owing the National Hospital ,there was an agreement  that the National Hospital will treat the patient and the Federal ministry of finance will pay the National Hospital the bill. He said since the administration of president Goodluck Jonathan , that the sum of 17.8million was paid, the National Hospital is claiming it has incurred a bill of 120 million yet to be verified by the foundation and they have stopped treatment of the patients.
While lamenting the various states of the patients, Epelle reiterated that it is totally unacceptable in the medical profession to stop the treatment of patients due to lack of fund that it will lead to the death of the patient. He said they have lost one of them already and they are not ready to loose more of them
Appealing to the presidency, he called on the Federal Government to direct the National Hospital to commence the treatment since the patients cannot afford the high cost of treatment of the skin cancer.
Further more, he called for the decentralization of the treatment,  The Federal ministry of health through the National Health council should be decentralized to at least the six geo-political zones to reduce the pressure on the National Hospital and this approval  is yet to be carried out.
Speaking with Mr Momoh Abdul Majid one of the  patients, who lamented on his condition , He said he has been battling the cancer since 2017, according to him, as an albino you cannot move under the sun,I did the treatment in Benin and Lagos before hearing about the Albino foundation and commenced treatment ,but stopping the treatment has not been easy since the drugs are very expensive and we need the drugs to contain the pains.
He called on the Federal Government to reactivate the intervention programme ,to intervene and resume the treatment. Also recommending the decentralized treatment since most of the patients are from different parts of the country.