Do not discriminate against children with sickle cell
The President of the Sickle Cell Foundation of Ghana, Professor Kwaku Ohene-Frempong, has called on teachers and caregivers not to discriminate against children with the sickle cell disease since the disease is not infectious and can be managed.
Advertisement
He said it was important for teachers and school officials to have more information about the disease in order to understand what it was all about.
Prof. Ohene-Frempong pointed out that sickle cell was not infectious, neither was it caused by a curse or the work of witchcraft.
He, therefore, encouraged teachers to pay attention to students with sickle cell.
“Stigmatisation is more painful to the child than the pain of the disease itself,” he said in an interview with the Junior Graphic.
Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disease in which the red blood cells that carry oxygen can become abnormally shaped, stiff and sticky; therefore, they can damage and block blood vessels. In addition, he said sickle cells break up easily, which could lead to anaemia.
Prof. Ohene-Frempong noted that sickle cell disease comes with frequent illness resulting in high absenteeism among students with the disease.
That, he said, could affect the academic performance of the child and stressed that it was necessary for both parents and teachers to work together in order to help the child catch up with what he or she had missed.
Prof. Ohene-Frempong said it was important for children with the sickle cell disease to be academically strong to make them independent since they may not be able to engage in physical labour or work that demanded a lot of physical activity in future.
Teachers and parents need to support the children even when they fall ill from time to time, so that they can gain maximum value from education.
For instance, he said, parents could go to the school and collect the homework for the child to do at home when he or she was unable to be in school.
According to him, to ensure that teachers have enough information on the disease, the foundation together with the Ghana Education Service (GES), had drafted a school policy guide that, when completed and approved, would teach school officers and teachers about the disease as well as how to assist affected students.
Giving some statistics on the disease, he said it was estimated that 14,000 children are born with the sickle cell disease in Ghana every year but unfortunately, only 350 to 400 of these children are currently diagnosed as newborns because of lack of support for new born screening which should be national.
At the moment the pilot programme for newborn screening which started in 1995 is still held in Kumasi and a few surrounding communities.
He said the sickle cell disease was the leading cause of stroke in children in Ghana.