Nigerians have high threshold for pain - US doctor

"People [in Nigeria] had such rudimentary (or basic) medical equipment, but they were still able to provide services,” West Virginia Vascular Institute’s Dr. Herbert Oye said. “They didn’t have general anesthesia. Most of the things they did there, they did with local anesthesia.



“One of the striking things for me was that people had very high thresholds for pain. You could do most surgeries there with local anesthesia, which is almost unheard of. People here want their Lortabs, Percocets and morphine, but they had none of that. There were no worries about over-prescribing pain medications.”

Local anesthesia numbs part of the body into which it is injected, while general anesthesia puts the patient to sleep.

Oye says everyone was eager to learn from the medical team that went on the trip.

“The doctors and nurses were very receptive to our suggestions,” he said. “They wanted to do a whole lot to improve the services that they provide.

“It was quite an experience and no amount of money can come close to what I got from the experience. It was very rewarding.”

The trip, which was sponsored by the not-for-profit World Health Mission, lasted two weeks in the village of Warri, Nigeria.

“We had several clinic visits with multiple patients from pediatric patients to adults,” Oye said. “We then went to examine several patients that Dr. Uche Ugoji wanted us to see and provide service for these patients. We did some hernia surgeries. We did some surgical excision of masses. We also did vein surgery.

“It was very exciting and very rewarding because the indigenous population there was very grateful and came and looked forward to being treated. We spent extra time to ensure that we could see as many people as we could.”

Oye said the people of Warri don’t have the high-tech hospitals we have in America.

“The equipment was quite rudimentary,” he said. “Some of the supplies for basic surgery, they didn’t have some of those. We came out with an experience that taught us that we in the United States have a lot to offer our patients, but at the same time, we are quite wasteful. The things we do, like opening a pack of 12 items, using two or three, then throw the rest away.

“These people didn’t have anything. We’re taking supplies from here and graciously supplying them to them. One of our local pharmacies here was gracious to provide us with several medications for diabetes, arthritis, for other ailments that we’ve also presented to the clinic.”

Oye said people in Nigeria die from things we would never let kill someone in the U.S.

“We don’t want people dying who don’t need to die,” he said. “My father was from that part of the world. When he was ill, he came here and was treated by specialists, but he wanted to return home. He became sicker, so he was put in the hospital and paid whatever treatment costs there were. They didn’t even have basic oxygen. He had to be transferred to another institution and he died.

“On a personal note, I know that it happens that people can die just from there not even being oxygen present for treatment.

“Patients can die of heart attacks because over there they don’t have what is called a cath lab. For a population of 178 million people, they have about one cath lab per 3 million people. Here in Beckley, we have two hospitals and four cath labs.

“There is no development to take care of the fact that heart disease is moving into that part of the world. It’s going to be tragic because people will die almost for sure when they get old.

“We see a lot of young folks over there, from 20 to 24, have a high risk of stroke,” he added. “There are no stroke centers. Those are things we feel we can help through a private venture route like the Oyesis Health Care System. We can bring American style health care over there so patients can get the help they need.”

The Oyesis Health Care System is a “trans-Atlantic health care delivery system developed to provide world-class, cutting-edge medical and surgical services to urban and rural communities in developing countries,” according to the group’s website.

Seeing the problems that places like Nigeria face gave Oye and the other members of the World Health Mission an idea about what they need to do to help everyone.

“One of the things we’re trying to bridge as part of the World Health Mission are ways to ensure that people are taken care of through the Oyesis Health Care System so we can bridge their health care system with ours,” Oye said.

“We could go over there and provide a U.S.-based type health care system in a country of 178 million people and kind of be idealistic about it.

“We were able to advise some of the physicians and nurses over there of some better health care provision options that could be available and used in the not-so-distant future. That mission was very successful. We’re also currently looking to assist them with equipment procurement and how we can help boost their current situation because it really could be improved.”

Oye said the group met the governor of Bayelsa, a state in southern Nigeria, and has some ideas about how they can help Nigeria and West Virginia at the same time.

“The governor has done a great job of building up-to-date facilities that are like those found in America,” he said. “The problem is that they don’t have enough people to run these places. They have these fine facilities but no manpower to run the hospitals. The governor wants to make Bayelsa a volunteer destination for medical professionals who want to donate any amount of their time to working in these hospitals. I think that’s a cool way to attract professionals to the community.

“We have spoken with him about creating a sisterhood arrangement with West Virginia and the state of Bayelsa. I personally love West Virginia. I promote West Virginia a whole lot, so I had been talking with the government there in which we could use our nursing schools, medical schools, and universities to get students from Bayelsa here on scholarships and they can go back and help their communities.”