Olaitan Soyannwo – Professor of Anaesthesia, Dean of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan
Interviewed by David Clark 4 June 2004
Length of interview ( West Africa group): 40 minutes.

Professor Olaitan Soyannwo explains how her interest in pain management arose out of seeing the suffering of surgical and trauma patients. Realising that cancer patients received no pain management at all, she attended the World Pain Congress in 1996 and returned to Nigeria inspired to establish a palliative care team at the University Teaching Hospital. That team, now known as the Palliative Care Initiative, Nigeria, is affiliated to the International Association for the Study of Pain. She lists the fora through which she spreads the word of palliative care principles, including the West African College of Surgeons and the Faculty of Anaesthesia. Advocacy for palliative care and accessibility to oral morphine is a priority. Introduction of palliative care methods into the curriculum for medical and nursing students has been presented for ratification by the university authorities. Hospice Uganda has been the model for training health professionals. Without oral morphine in the country, health professionals do what they can with injectable morphine. Beginning with cancers of the breast and cervix, this group of professionals are developing a protocol of holistic care that can be applied to other conditions, including HIV/AIDS. The hospital is already registered for antiretroviral therapy and prevention of mother to child transmission. She hopes that palliative care will be implemented by these programmes. Turning to the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) and her role as board member, Olaitan Soyannwo reflects on Anne Merriman’s efforts to introduce palliative care to Nigeria before moving to Kenya and Uganda. She hopes that APCA will give the necessary impetus to the implementation of palliative care by both the public health system and the private sector in Nigeria. She identifies the need to form a national palliative care association in the country in order to gain an accurate picture of the various services.

Olusola Fatunmbi – nurse,founder of Hospice Nigeria
Interviewed by David Clark 4 June 2004
Length of interview ( West Africa group): 40 minutes.

Olusola Fatunmbi attended the Sixth International Conference at St Christopher’s Hospice in 1991 and was inspired to return to Nigeria to implement home based palliative care. Having met Anne Merriman at the conference she invited her to Nigeria in 1993 to advocate with the Ministry of Health for the necessary systems to be put in place for palliative care. Talks were held at the Lagos Teaching Hospital but there was little political will at the time to embrace this medical speciality. Having attended further palliative care courses at St Christopher’s Hospice, she began to network with an oncologist in the region who shared her vision of home based care for the needy. Establishing a home based care service with her husband and other interested professionals, she facilitates palliative care for many Nigerian patients referred from St Christopher’s Hospice. She describes how oral morphine is unavailable in Nigeria, necessitating patients arriving from the UK with their own supply of palliative drugs. Referrals of patients from the diaspora continue to account for the majority of her patients. Olusola Fatunmbi gives a moving account of one of her patients whose symptoms were well controlled using locally available vegetables. She concludes by sharing her vision for palliative care education to be incorporated into existing health care systems in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, using the model championed by Hospice Africa, Uganda.