Occupational Medicine 1984;34:60-62
© 1984 Society of Occupational Medicine
research-article |
Screening for Intestinal Helminthiasis at Pre-employment Medical Examinations in Nigeria—the Economic Rationale
Department of Community Health, University of Jos Jos, Nigeria
As a result of inadequate national health services occupational health services play an important role of providing health services to a vital segment of the Nigerian population. Industrial clinics, therefore, provide fully comprehensive health care not only for the employees but also for their families. Often pre-employment medical examinations provide the first and only basic health information about the employee. Consequently, there is the temptation to carry out all possible investigations at these medical examinations.
But having considered the fact that the financial resources are limited it seems a more appropriate approach is to carry out such investigations as stool parasitology, only to confirm diagnosis of suspected cases. The employee is not likely to be disqualified merely because worms were found in his stool. Moreover evidence shows that while only 13-8 per cent of investigations carried out on routine basis were positive, 53-6 per cent of those carried out to confirm diagnosis were positive. A private practitioner providing services to the industries and who may not have laboratory facilities will spend at least five Nigerian Naira per investigation. This means that at pre-employment medical examinations he may spend about five hundred Naira to investigate 100 employees with the chance of only 13 of them being positive. This money could be saved for other services.
N. Anoruo Okere, P.O. Box 208, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.