The Values of ENT Medical Outreach in Suburb of Ekiti State, South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Objectives: To review the function of an otolaryngology (ENT) specialist outreach service in the various towns of Ekiti by the Federal Teaching Hospital Ido-Ekiti (FETHI)  ENT team over a 5 year period(2013 to 2018).The purpose is to highlight the various ENT Problems and the difficulties being faced by the populace which discouraged them from attending the ENT tertiary facilities.

Methods: The ENT and Community Medicine departments’ staff maintained a record of all outreach towns and patients profiles seen during each outreach. Data recorded for each visit included the number of patients, biometrics, occupations, ENT Problems with the patients, the procedure/operations done at the outreach site and at FETHI. All these data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23 in an attempt to qualitatively measure the impact of the visits.

Results: From 2013 to 2018 a total of 8188 were seen in our outreach out of which 2394 had ENT related problems. From Table 1, it can be seen that most of the patients with ENT problems (N = 672, %age = 28.1) lies in the age group between 41 years to 50 years. There are22.6% patients in age group of 31— 40 years, 15.7% in age group of 21 – 30 years, 11.2% in age group of 51 – 61 years, 10.7% in age group of 11 – 20 years, and 6.9% in age group of 01 – 10 years. There are only 4.8% ENT patients (N = 115) having age of 61 or more years. It can be seen that most of the patients with ENT problem lies from age group of 11 -- 60

Conclusion: In developed countries, outreach by ENT surgeons is important in as much as addressing critical lack of access ENT care in developing countries. However, it should be done on shared values, mutual respect, aspirations, and desire to build a durable and sustainable impact, and best practice which is accepted inte rnationally.