By Sheriff Mahmud Ismail, Freetown.
A local newspaper has reported that “30% of patients admitted at the Connaught Hospital are HIV Positive’’ and that these are not prostitutes, gays or lesbians.
But an established Sierra Leonean medical doctor has vehemently dismissed that report as inaccurate, ridiculous and that no one should believe it.
“I am a clinician and I managed patients at the Connaught Hospital. Of course there are HIV patients admitted in the hospital but to conclude that 1 in every 3 patients on admission are HIV patients is not true; I can challenge that statistics’’, Dr Russell emphasized. He went further to state that he is involved in clinical research in his area of practice and has published a lot on medicine in Sierra Leone; that he knows for sure that the statistic given is not true.
“In one of our research on TB pericarditis (Heart TB), the prevalence of HIV was around 3% and this trial was published in the ’New England Journal of Medicine’… this was a multi-centre trial involving more than 20 centres in15 countries.So I am talking about evidence available than assumption.” he stressed.
Connaught Hospital reportedly has a bed capacity of approximately 300. If 1in 3 patients in the hospital is HIV Positive, it means that 90 HIV positive cases are admitted at the hospital at every given time. Dr Russell insisted that this is not true. ’’Although Connaught is the main referral hospital in the country and one would expect a higher number of HIV patients there than in other hospitals, that figure is ridiculous and no one should believe it’’; he reiterated.
While some have criticized the journalist for being sensational at the detriment of the country; others say the journalist may have only reported data that may have been given to him by some NGO who may be looking for donor funding.
A medical researcher and statistician, Professor, Osman Sankoh, said the issue of inaccurate medical reporting is serious across Africa. He therefore suggests that it will be helpful to train journalists in correct health/scientific reporting. But several commentators agree that the headline on the Awoko newspaper of, 21-12-2016, which is the source of the information, is very misleading, scary and damaging especially as we are emerging from the Ebola outbreak.
References have also been made to a similar scary and erroneous report on HIV in Kailahun and Pujehun few months ago.
Dr Brima Kargbo (photo), the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) who served for many years as the Coordinator of the National AIDS Secretariat was pretty livid over what he termed as that ’’erroneous report’’. The CMO explains that ’’the prevalence of HIV in a country is determined through a population based survey and not through a facility based reporting’’. He also said, ’’Usually patients who are sick report in our health facilities and for a prevalence of 1.5% in the country, how can 30% be admitted at Connaught hospital at a given time?
’’Only yesterday, we installed a state - of - the - art dialysis equipment at the hospital but such insensitive reporting will rather stigmatise patients instead of encouraging them to come to the facility. Let us be fair to our country and stop sensational reporting’’, the CMO urged.
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