Speakers - WNSC 2023

Abstract

Hippolite O. Amadi, Eyinade K. Olateju, Amina L. Abubakar, Christiana T. Adesina, Chinwe D. Obu, Ifeoluwa Abioye Jennifer O. Nwaneri

Publications have shown that African countries and many other LMICs are riddled with many needs and lack basic infrastructure due to poor government commitment and goodwill toward the people. It is well-understood that such political situations as are prevalent at LMICs would never breed a conducive environment for a competitive, independent, and progressive healthcare system. This is the backdrop of a high neonatal mortality rate in Nigeria, for example. Efficient neonatal care is all about sustainable and affordable technologies that have remained elusive to these countries. The extensive neonatal work of this corresponding author and his Nigerian team, spanning over a quarter century, reveals that the country is full of very intelligent basic skilled nurses and doctors who can rid the country of its high neonatal mortality if provided with the necessary technologies. However, this is farfetched for a lack of government empathy and, perhaps, international conspiracy. The technology requirements to save neonates have remained unaffordable and insufficient in most Nigerian centers, creating no immediate hope for the reduction of high morbidity caused by this condition. The country’s high poverty rate and 100% dependency on technology importation have further put any sustainable solution beyond her reach. A possible sustainable solution that could alter the trend for good must be radical, affordable, and indigenously self-sustaining.

We highlight the components of our Neonatal Rescue Scheme (NRS) and its recent frugal devices and ideas that could revolutionize neonatal healthcare in resource-limited settings. These are radical ideas within the contexts of rural healthcare transformation, empowering local people in remote locations of the LMICs with extraordinary knowledge to push their own boundaries of neonatal survival. The rural health centers in the hinterlands of Nigeria are limited in skill and technology to handle neonatal devastating conditions such as extreme prematurity requiring incubator care, respiratory distress syndrome requiring non-invasive respiratory support machines with the use of oxygen delivery techniques, threats of hyper-bilirubinaemia and kernicterus syndrome disorder (KSD) requiring early phototherapy treatment, amongst other conditions. A great number of neonates in the hinterlands die of these conditions because they are unable to successfully journey to the yet impoverished centers in the cities, where there could be expertise but without any guarantee for survival. Therefore, many of them die without being known or counted. Our NRS is changing all these with technologies that empower the rural populace.

We set out to develop low-cost, rural village-compatible devices that could ensure the affordability of incubators, bubble CPAP application, minor assistive breathing devices, and extended reach of oxygen delivery, all applying low voltages that could be derived from the sun. Hence, we trialed applications such as the recycled incubator technology (RIT) 1, discovered and researched the antidote to evening fever syndrome (EFS) 2, the Handy Approach (HHA) and
Initial Setpoint Algorithm (HISA) 3, the politeheartCPAP machine 4, the polite oxygen splitter system (PSS) 5, the polite-light-bank (PLB) 6, and various other applications, which are currently in use at some rural centers of Nigeria. These are affordable technologies that are reliant on sunlight-harnessed and converted energy for operation, with which Nigerian centers like the Niger-State’s Amina-centre in Minna have applied in reducing neonatal mortality from 90% to 4% within five years of operation. The combination of these technologies and the training provided for the local practitioners have provided strong intervention confidence that they applied to adequately cater to the needy neonates simultaneously within their rural location, hence revolutionizing the once precarious situations. The Minna, Nigeria case shows that the LMICs can be empowered for self-sustaining and independent healthcare, pushing their own boundaries of development and self-reliance.

1. Amadi et al., Impact of the RIT. Int J Ped 2010. doi:10.1155/2010/269293.

2. Amadi et al., EFS weatherproof nursery. Int J Ped 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/986760

3. Amadi et al., Novel HISA technique. J Ped Neonatal Care 2017. DOI: 10.15406/jpnc.2017.06.00232

4. Amadi et al., politeCPAP. Paedtr Int Child Health 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/20469047.2019.1598125

5. Amadi HO., The frugal PSS. J Ped Neonatal Care 2023. https://doi.org/10.15406/jpnc.2023.13.00495

6. Amadi & Abubakar., The novel PLB technology. Global J Med Res 2023. GJMR-K Volume 23 Issue 3 Version 1.0                                                               

https://globaljournals.org/ev/GJMR/1626586625644fe6ce7d7846.02031295.pdf