‘Teachers, Important For Children’s Asthma Management’

A Consultant Respiratory Physician, Dr Olufunke Adeyeye, says teachers, through their better knowledge, have the role of providing a positive environment, free of stigma for children suffering from asthma.
Adeyeye, who works at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), made the assertion at a lecture organised for teachers on Tuesday in Lagos.
The lecture was organised by the Achieving Control of Asthma in Children in Africa (ACACIA), in collaboration with the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.
The consultant said that there was need to raise more awareness among teachers and make schools better equipped to have children do well in academics in spite of suffering from asthma.
“From our findings, children spend long hours in school and the teachers are parents for these children when the parents are not there.
“So, if a child has asthma, he or she can be symptomatic when in school and things in school can actually make the condition worse for the child.
“Therefore, it is important that teachers know about asthma and how to support children with the condition.
“We have actually done a study that looked at the knowledge of teachers about asthma in Lagos and discovered many of them do not know about the condition.
“So, we felt this lecture can be an intervention that we can use to put out the information for teachers so that they can be of help,” she said.