NEWS
Your mind affects your health – Dr Olukayode Oremakinde
By Gloria Ogunbadejo, The Punch Newspapers
Sunday, 8 Aug 2010
To say Dr. Olukayode Oremakinde, 42, loves people would be an understatement. It might be more accurate to say he is passionate about the human condition and wellbeing, and sees it from a holistic perspective. He is radical in some of his views: he believes there is a connection between spirituality and medicine and advocates looking more closely at the spiritual in us in relationship to things like schizophrenia and other mental health issues.
Among the many hats he wears is that of a pastor with a thriving parish. Oremakinde is also the founder of ‘Priest‘ Clinic situated on Harley Street in West London. He practises in two very well established and thriving GP Surgeries in London. Dr. Kayode‘s (as he is fondly referred to by his staff and patients alike) energy seems boundless as he sweeps around his practice escorting patients to the front door as he holds their babies in one hand and toddlers in the other.
His laughter can be heard as he jostles with his staff members, who clearly adore him. I‘m not sure they have ever encountered a GP with his particular ‘bedside manners.’ Oremankinde is married to Toyin, who is herself a highly qualified and experienced doctor and works as a consultant in public medicine in the UK. They have three children. These are vignettes from our interview.
Dr. Kayode, tell me who you are, a little bit about yourself.
I actually originated from Nigeria before I moved to the UK. I qualified in 1991. I‘d been to the UK as an undergraduate so I always wanted to practise in the country.
Was there any family influence in terms of guiding you into medicine or was it something you always wanted to do?
I guess my dad. I think he wanted to be a doctor and because of his background he never succeeded so he did engineering. I think in the back of his mind he always wanted one of his children to be a doctor. I wouldn‘t say it was entirely up to him because one of my aunts I grew up with said as a child I used to dissect frogs. She always knew I had a medical calling.
Tell me a bit about your journey to the UK.
I‘ve always wanted to do paediatrics. That‘s how I started. I came to the UK wanting to be a paediatrician. I wanted to be a neonatologist, looking after very small children. I did training at the Royal London in Whitechapel, a speciality centre. They had a three year training programme there which was quite comprehensive at the time. And I was one of the few fortunate blacks to get into that programme at the time it started. My wife is also a doctor; so she was in obstetrics and gynae and then I had to make a choice: do you want a medical career or do you want a family? There wasn‘t a contest. Family was more important to us. So we now decided to design how we could have both our medical careers and have our family. We decided something had to give. So I now went to do an MBA, thinking I would leave medicine. Maybe work for the NHS in a management role, use my medical skills at the same time. I took a year out, and I started hearing from God that I needed to go back to medicine - I‘m actually very spiritual - so I went back to medicine. During the time I went back to medicine the opportunity to be a general practitioner came about. It was during my re-training that I went into psychiatry. I did about six months in psychiatry and I enjoyed it. I was contemplating psychiatry.
What was it about it that you found interesting?
I‘m also a pastor. The mind of people affects people‘s health. The mind is crucial. It was very fascinating to go into the mind. I worked in that area for about 18 months.
So after psychiatry, what did you go into?
Well I got a job as a GP in West Essex (just outside London). I‘ve been doing that for almost five years. I still deal with people‘s mental health within my practice; I deal with alcohol and drug abuse patients.
What do you find to be the most significant aspect of people health? Are there any mental health issues that seem to make an impact on people‘s health in general?
Depression stands out. We have a time of challenges for the whole world. The recession is going on – lots of people are losing their jobs, it‘s affecting families. You find people coming in complaining of headaches, stomach aches, all kind of aches. You initially try and diagnose the physical problems but after a few visits you start to focus on the real person. It‘s after that you start to ask other questions and you find out something is happening in the family or at work. They start coming out with symptoms of depression.
Have you found particular groups of society have a better ability to understand and accept depression than others?
The typical African patient would find it difficult to accept the issue of depression. We are used to psychosis – people who are mad, lost their mind – but depression is something that we‘re not used to. But the Caucasian population have a better understanding of mental health; in fact someone will come to me and say I‘m depressed. The likelihood of a Black man or Black woman – even second and third generation – to say they are depressed is unlikely. They said people who are high achievers or who have access to money and education, whatever race, seem to resist the label of depression. Another thing that I‘ve found interesting, especially for people moving into different cultural surroundings, is that you do not have the societal support that you would have had where you‘re coming from. If within that first year or two they come, they meet some hard times, it‘s a lot easier for them to have a florid psychotic breakdown because they do not have the support system around them.
How do you think we can bring a greater awareness of mental health to the African population?
Two nights ago I was on Facebook and I came across a friend who had trained to be a consultant psychiatrist in Ibadan. He said he was about to start his own psychiatry practice there. I asked him what it was like back home. There are a lot of Nigerian psychiatrists in the UK and the States. For it to become truly acceptable in Nigeria, the leadership - both political and health - need to drive down the issue and start to bring about mental health awareness so people can start to recognise it.
What projects are you working on now?
Being a doctor, we get a lot of phone calls from people in Nigeria, or Nigerians living in the UK who want to access general practice needs, or want to see a specialist and don‘t know how to access a doctor. The govt had made it so much more difficult: if you don‘t have documentations you cannot get NHS care. I figured there must be a way of working this out; there was a gap in the market for private health care in this field. Then I entered into the idea of starting Priest. I went to Nigeria to develop my idea and the response was immense. If people have the money to seek out private health care, they will do it.
So are you saying the brand of medicine you are offering is for the elite?
No, it‘s for anyone who wants to access private health care in the UK, but our costs are affordable, very competitive. No one has refused our services when they hear the price. Unfortunately, the people who will have access to it will be elite. I consult on a charity basis, for people who don‘t have the means. I decided to set it up in a central location, which is why I chose Harley Street in London. We offer people access to the UK private health care system. That means whatever you want; Priest can either do it or facilitate the resources to access it. Some people come from Nigeria with only malaria. We then facilitate their recovery – we treat them generally, blood pressure measuring, access to medications. We are doing health training – a big part of our business is to educate Nigerians. We send out emails about cancer and other illnesses, schedule annual health checks. Typically someone will come to me for a health check, we will give them a blood test in the morning, send it to the laboratories, and by afternoon, we have their results back. We have organised scans, ECG, whatever you need, we do it the same day. It‘s like a small BUPA, except we offer immediate assistance to people who might only be here in the UK for a short while. The person can go back home seeing their results and knowing what the doctor has told them.
What impact do you want to have on people‘s lives?
The major thing is to save lives. I lost my dad five years ago because I believe he didn‘t have access to good medical care. Let‘s find out what needs to be done. Maybe we can take this to Nigeria in the long run
Want our service? Fill the Online Medical form