As reported by Punch, the Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON) on Monday began a medical outreach offering free surgeries to 150 children in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State.

The surgical operations, which commenced at the Aisha Buhari Mother and Child Hospital in Eiyenkonrin, focus on children below 15 years with inguinoscrotal swelling conditions such as hernia and hydrocele. This outreach is part of the activities marking APSON's 23rd Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference.

Chairman of the local organising committee for the conference, Professor Luqman Abdulraman, who is also the National Vice Chairman of APSON, revealed that the surgeries would address conditions including lipoma, cleft lips, lumps, undescended testicles, cysts, and umbilical hernia, among others.

Professor Abdulraman noted that Kwara State is hosting the conference for the second time in 14 years, with this year’s event including an expanded medical outreach.

According to Abdulraman, “We are including free surgical outreach to give back to the communities by providing free surgeries and our target is 150 children from all the states of the country,” adding that, “the Association also received one request from Gambia.”

The APSON vice chairman who is equally a Consultant Paediatrician at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital stressed that the activities of the surgeons will last for a week, while the state will be hosting an International training facilitated by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

He stated, “We started the outreach on Monday, all the patients were referred to us from various hospitals from many Teaching Hospitals across the country including Gambia.’’

“We operated 30 children on Monday, we also performed another 30 on Tuesday. We are going to meet up with the 150 children projected for this outreach by Saturday.”

Continuing, the LOC chairman added that the Association will train members and colleagues on how to take care of children who suffer injuries of various types.

He explained further that the course is titled: “Trauma Resuscitation in Kids,” which will take place at UITH for two days.

Similarly, Abdulraman explained that the state will host both local and international participants who will be delivering discussions and talks on current matters.

“The theme of the conference is entitled: ‘Quality Improvement in Surgical Care of Children,’ and the sub-theme is ‘Transitional Care in Paediatrics Surgery’.

The medic pointed out that the choice of theme is the belief that the association “had done so much in the expansion of what we are able to offer in children’s surgical services.

“We want to look at ways to improve on the quality of services we are rendering to children, so that everybody will exchange ideas and how to make things better.”

According to him, in caring for the children, the association will also deliberate on how to help them after they have attained adulthood in managing emerging diseases and conditions.

“That’s why we brought transitional care in paediatrics surgery. Some of these children may have ailments that require surgical care that are not discovered early enough,” he insisted.

“We want to have a discussion with other surgery providers on how to see these children we have cared for during their childhood and how they can have continuity of care as adults,” he said.

Also speaking, Professor AbdulRasheed Nazir, a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital who is the head of the Surgery outreach remarked that the free surgical outreach is for children who have unmet surgical needs.

He lamented the plight of the many children who have special conditions that require surgery but cannot afford the cost, regretting that such children are hidden to suffer the pains with their parents because they do not have the means and access to surgical intervention.

AbdulRasheed explained that most of the common surgical conditions in children that are presented are hernias.

“They are usually presented as swelling in the scrotum and hydrocele, which has attended complications. We are also attending to children with cleft lips and lumps,” he educated.

In their appreciative remarks, Mr Abdullahi Abubakar and Mrs Nafisat Baqi, who were some of the parents whose

children benefited from the free surgeries commended the Association for the life-saving intervention.

They explained that they could not access health intervention previously because the surgery was expensive to the tune of N200,000.