Hospitals Are Not Refusing To Treat Ogogo – Doctor

A medical doctor and health communicator, Dr Olusina Ajidahun, has clarified the controversy surrounding the treatment of veteran Nollywood actor Ogogo. This comes following concerns raised by the moviestar’s daughters that hospitals were refusing to continue treating their father, who is battling stage-four cancer.

Reacting, Ajidahun, known as The Bearded Dr Sina on X, said that the description of Ogogo‘s situation shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as hospitals abandoning or refusing to treat the actor.

He added that doctors often recommend palliative care when aggressive treatment is no longer considered beneficial or safe for a patient.

His words, “Stage-four cancer means the disease has spread from its original site to other parts of the body, and at that point, the treatment approach may change, depending on the type of cancer, how far it has spread and the patient’s overall condition.

When patients have stage 4 cancer and chemo and/or other therapies have been explored. There is a form of care called palliative care which is end-of-life care and care for terminal diseases because at the point of the disease you cannot treat it, but you can manage associated symptoms and give the person a good quality of life before death.

Saying they don’t want to treat my father makes it look like they are intentionally rejecting him, and in the context of recent happenings in the health sector, it can trigger an insurrection and put a bad label on health care workers.”

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.