One week seminar on sexual and reproductive health with free health checks including screening for cervical and prostate cancer by Delta reproductive health initiative and research centre (DERHIREC) Sapele

DERHIREC put together a one week seminar on Sexual and Reproductive Health with free general health checks including screening for cervical and prostatic cancers. During this week long activities over sixty females (which included women and youths) and about sixty men (men and youths) participated. They were all accorded assessment of their Height, Weight, Body mass index (BMI), Blood pressure check, Urinalysis, Blood Sugar and Packed Cell Volume. In addition, the females had screening for cervical cancer using visual inspection with acetic acid and Lugol’s iodine, those with suspicious lesions where sent for pap smear at an extremely subsidized rate. The males also had prostatic scan assessment done and those with suspicious prostatic volume and size had Prostate specific antigen (PSA) assessment undertaken at highly subsidized rate. 

DERHIREC is an NGO devoted to Advocacy, Research, documentation and Service delivery in Sexual & Reproductive Health through a world class Reproductive Health Clinic. It was Founded on September 1, 2007 with a mission to promote the reproductive health and wellbeing of Nigerians and to improve the practice of sexual and reproductive health in the country. The vision of the centre is to be the leading center in Africa dedicated to research, advocacy, documentation and service delivery in sexual and reproductive health. The Centre is ably run by an ebullient team of highly skilled professionals under the able leadership of the Executive Director Prof. Lawrence Omo-Aghoja, who is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, with a permanent Chair, of Infertility & Reproductive Endocrinology at the Delta State University, Abraka and he is the incumbent Dean of Faculty of Clinical Medicine. 

“Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the law and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.

Nigerians have extremely poor SRH status which is festered by the high level of illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, inappropriate knowledge of SRH and lack of advocacy activities by the vanguards of SRH coupled with extreme paucity of centres dedicated to the practice of sexual and reproductive health in Nigeria. Indeed, presently in Delta State only Delta Reproductive Health Initiative and Research Centre (DERHIREC) exist. It is also sad that despite the high contribution of cervical cancer to female mortality, and prostatic cancer to male mortality, there have been few policies, programmes and advocacy activities that address these problems. We believe that a community-based project involving key community members as active partners is critical to increasing women’s access to effective and appropriate practice of SRH, prevention and control measures of cervical and prostatic cancers in this region. It was against this back drop that this programme was put together by DERHIREC with the overall goal of increasing women’s access to effective and appropriate practice of SRH, prevention and control measures of cervical and prostatic cancers in Sapele, as well as optimizing the reproductive health status of women and men in Delta State.

The specific objectives achieved were, a survey of the knowledge, attitude towards and practise of SRH, Didactic presentations and interactive sessions on SRH with the following key topics very well addressed: 1. Sexual and Reproductive Health: Concepts and Current Status Amongst Nigerians; 2. Cervical cancer: Risk factors, Features, Prevention & Management; 3. Safe Motherhood and Common Challenges of Pregnancy; 4. Climacteric & Menopause; 5. Infertility; 6. Harmful Traditional Practices in Nigeria: Implications for Sexual and Reproductive Health; 7. Family Planning: benefits and options; and 8. Prostate Cancer Update: Presentation, Screening, and Treatment. Additionally, health screening for BP, BMI, Urinalysis, Blood sugar, and Hb concentration were undertaken, as well as , Screening for cervical and prostatic cancers. 

Patients with general health challenge and or suspicious lesions on the cervix or prostate were appropriately attended to and additional blood test were also indicate it. 

The participants expressed profound appreciation to staff and management of the organization for the landmark programme, and were quite happy that their knowledge about SRH has been enriched and their health status determined at no cost.