People with relatives suffering from spinal deformities should not allow financial limitations or traditional beliefs stop them from seeking medical attention for such relatives. Dr Oheneba Boachie-Adjei, Chief of Sclerosis Services at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, United States, told a seminar on spinal diseases in Accra lastnight that this is the only way to draw government’s attention to the prevalence of the disease for necessary remedial measures to be adopted. The five-day seminar on Current Concepts and Management of Diseases of the Spine and Spinal Cord is being attended by more than 50 spinal disease specialists, scientists, researchers and the general public. It is being organised by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and sponsored by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, with Dr Boachie-Adjei and Dr Bernard A. Rawlins, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics at the Cornell University Medical Centre, New York, as resource persons. Dr Boachie-Adjei, who spoke on “Neuromuscular and Congenital Spinal Deformities”, regretted that social perceptions in Ghana make people with spinal deformities to be kept indoors, unlike in the US where such people are seen as part of the society and all medical measures taken to make them useful to society.
