OBITUARY: Osotimehin, the seasoned doctor who spoke of his greatest pain — two weeks to his death

Babatunde Osotimehin, late executive director of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and one-time Nigeria’s minister of health may have passed on but his legacies in reproductive health would always remain fresh in the annals of history.

While it is a common practice in many African countries, including Nigeria, for a woman to die in the course of child delivery, Osotimehin was one of few who fought against the scourge.

Just few weeks ago, precisely on May 15, he had confessed to journalists on the sideline of an award dinner organised by the Nigeria Health Foundation in Newark, US, that such practice remains one of the most painful things for him.

“In the present job I have, it is very painful for me that I would hear and I would see women die during childbirth, as minister and as a doctor. There’s no reason why a child should die of malaria or a woman should die giving birth. So a woman who is in labour goes into a care centre and she bleeds to death. This is totally unacceptable. Those are things that in present day world must not occur at all,” he had said.

ASKED NIGERIA TO EMULATE RWANDA

Osotimehin had urged Nigeria alongside other African countries to as part of measures to stem the tide of high maternal mortality rate, emulate Rwanda where transparency and accountability rules in the health sector.

In Rwanda, he said, a doctor attending to a woman at labour is obliged to immediately alert the health ministry if the woman dies.

“And you must send the text and tell the minister why the woman died. That’s not all, they would investigate it. If they find that you were negligent, then they must punish you because life is not something we play with; life is what we all doctors are trained to preserve and to save.”

HIS BATTLE WITH MALARIA, AIDS AND MATERNAL MORTALITY

Until his death, Osotimehin served in many positions and committees in the health sector, especially in the area of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

He served as the fourth executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as well as chairman of the Global Agenda Council on the Demographic Dividend.  Prior to his appointment at the UN organisation, he was the director-general of National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) that was before emerging as the country’s minister of health.

He was also African spokesperson, Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; chairman, National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA), Nigeria; project manager, HIV/AIDS Programme Development Project (World Bank-Assisted); chairman, project governing board, Joint Regional HIV/AIDS Project in the Abidjan–Lagos Transport Corridor; vice-president, 14th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA); chairman, committee of presidential advisers of AIDS Watch Africa and also member, policy and strategy committee, the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

PREACHED AGAINST FERMINISATION OF EPIDEMICS

While writing on New York Times, he lamented the ‘feminisation’ of epidemics in Africa. He had noted that although the greater percentage of Nigerians with HIV are females when compared to men,  perceiving these epidemics as a gender issue would only shift the focus from the real problem.

“Unless we urgently address this trend, we will fail to end this scourge. Recognising the reality in their own countries, some national governments, including Nigeria’s, have taken important steps to prevent infection in girls and women,” he had written.

“Many girls fall prey to sexual violence and coercion. Many others are married off very young, as young as 13 or 14, long before they are psychologically or physically ready. Abstinence is not an option for these girls, nor is getting their partners to use condoms. It is unacceptable for a woman or girl to ask her partner to use one in our part of the world.”

CAMPAIGNED FOR FREE TREATMENT OF MALARIA VICTIMS

As a health minister, Osotimehin had, as one of his targets in the health sector, ensuring free treatment of malaria victims in the country. In fact, not long after he assumed office, he established a special task force focused on the issues of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

He had said in an interview with Guardian that the taskforce “is to enable the proper coordination of the national response to the diseases.”

“This is the vehicle with which the [health] ministry has been moving towards achieving its Roll Back Malaria objectives of 50 per cent reduction in malaria cases and related deaths by the year 2010. There has been a phenomenal increase in political, religious and technical assistance and commitment towards the control of malaria as a result of high-level advocacy by government.”

In 2011, he was appointed executive director of UNFPA. He devoted much effort in ensuring improved well-being, especially in Africa.

During his appointment, he had said his major interests would include youth and gender, within the context of reproductive health and rights.

“We need to ensure that young people of both genders have equal participation, not only in reproductive rights and health but also within society and in the economy,” he had said in an interview.

Also, why speaking with UN news centre, he said some of his greatest feats were in the areas of the healthcare of the girl child as well as stemming the tide of violence against women.

“Our ‘Seven Billion’ campaign was a very effective campaign [where] we brought the world to think about how each one of us in the seven billion would have quality of life. We’ve also had the campaign about the girl child, calling attention to it.  We have mobilized the world to see that family planning is an important intervention and the world is listening.

“We are also working with our partners to speak against and work for and against violence against women.  So there are many things that we’ve done that we’re very proud of and I think that UNFPA is better positioned today than ever before.”

He also held the rank of under-secretary-general of the United Nations

AN OPTIMIST TO THE CORE

During an interview in 2013, a journalist asked him: “What is most frustrating in your job?”, and he responded “Frustrating…I’m too much of an optimist to allow frustrations to get to me. But maybe the frustration I might have is that I want things to happen quickly and sometimes they don’t happen as fast as I want them to.”

That was the vintage doctor.

An indigene of Ogun state, Osotimehin attended Igbobi College in Lagos between 1966 and 1971, after which he proceeded to University of Ibadan for his medical studies. He obtained his doctorate degree in medicine from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 1979.

He died in London aged 68. He is survived by his wife and five children.