Ask The Paediatricians Foundation

Ask The Paediatricians Foundation recently did a survey of 200 schools in Nigeria and Ghana on how the schools are faring with the current global pandemic and how we can support schools in keeping our children safe from Covid19 infection while they are learning. We discovered a gap in the schools being able to comply with the national guidelines for prevention of Covid19 pandemics and keeping the children safe at schools. Majority of the schools (87%) will appreciate ATP coming to run an awareness training programme for the school community. We believe the schools are important for children to learn but at the same time; the children should be able to do so safely without getting infected. To bridge the gap identified in this survey, ATP has launched the “ATP Support Schools against Covid-19” project. We aim to support 500 schools in Nigeria and Ghana in prevention of Covid19 infection transmission by providing them with Covid19 awareness training; provision of hygiene materials including thermometers, facemasks, handwashing basins and information flyers for reminders. This is the project we will be supporting with the Elevate Prize fund.

I am a Nigerian Paediatrician and started Ask The Paediatricians Foundation as a Facebook group on the 20th July 2015 out of my passion to reduce preventable deaths of children in Nigeria often rooted in ignorance. The Facebook group grew exponentially and currently has over 600,000 members who have testified to how impactful the group has been in keeping their children healthy and shaping their mindsets. I also realized that there are other parents that I cannot reach on social media who do not have smart phones and access to internet who even need the right health information more. This led me to formalize the group as a non-profit registered in Nigeria in 2017. Myself and other beneficiaries of the group and interested health care professionals then start to go to such indigent communities with very limited access to health care facilities and health care professionals to do community medical outreaches that include health talk, free medical and dental consultations, nutritional status assessment, provision of free food and drugs to the children we see. As at today, we have done over 100 medical outreaches in more than 35 locations in Nigeria and have reached directly more than 50,000 children directly. 

Ask The Paediatricians Foundation is working on reducing preventable deaths of children in Nigeria and Africa. According to the World Health Organisation, globally estimated 5.3 million children under age five died annually and roughly half of those deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is a major contributor child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. 

According to the Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (NDHS, 2018), the under-five mortality rate in Nigeria is 132 per 1,000 live births meaning that 1 in 8 Nigerian children never reach the age of 5. One Nigerian child under-5 years of age dies every minute. 

Factors contributing to these deaths include poor health system and facilities, finance as most have to pay out of pocket and ignorance due to supernatural beliefs and myths about cause of illnesses and solutions often harmful traditional practices. 

Ask The Paediatricians Foundation seeks to reduce those deaths that are largely preventable rooted in ignorance by making evidence health information from paediatricians accessible to all via our online social media platforms and mobile app. For those in rural areas with very limited access, we do periodic community medical outreaches and also reach students via our school outreaches with health education and promotional activities.

Ask The Paediatricians Foundation is the first in Nigerian to take child health education and information to social media leveraging on the advent of internet, mobile phones and social media to promote the right health information to large population who may not be able to access Paediatricians directly or may not be able to afford the cost where available. 

On our Facebook group, we answer over 1000 questions weekly on health concerns parents have about their children and provide quick advice. We are also proactive in doing weekly group discussion topical health issues for parents to learn in addition to livestream programme for live Question and Answer session. 

We also have a ATP mobile app for parents to readily get access to answers on health issues and read topical articles. Ask The Paediatricians Foundation is now a reference point for getting quality evidence-based health information for parents in Nigeria and beyond as we have over 100 countries represented in our 664,000 members strong Facebook group.

Additionally, we also do FREE community medical outreaches to indigent communities who do not routinely have access to health care professionals. During these large campaigns we often see more than 1000 children at once.

Ask The Paediatricians is making a difference in the health of Nigerian children. Many parents on our group have given qualitative feedback on how they are making changes and doing better in raising healthy children based on the information they got on our group. We have been able to save children from dying by promptly directing parents on how to seek appropriate care and in some instances being part of that solution to. 

We have reached 50,000 children directly in our medical outreaches with health educational talks, free medical and dental consultations, mass deworming, nutritional status assessment and treatment where needed. We also give free drugs at these outreaches and at least one healthy meals. Where necessary, we signpost the families to where they can continue to receive health care for chronic conditions. The beneficiaries in these indigent communities are often grateful and testified to how the outreach has impacted them positively.

We are having impact on humanity because our vision is to ensure that no child in Nigeria and indeed Africa die from preventable deaths. The child is at the centre of all we do in and we will not rest until we have achieved zero preventable child death.