EPILEPSY can be very difficult to treat, but in a country struggling to rebuild itself after an 11-year civil war, treating the condition can be almost impossible.

In Sierra Leone, in west Africa, where life expectancy is just 49 years, more than 50,000 people suffer from the life-threatening condition.

However, unlike in the UK, help is not easily at hand, as even admitting to the condition often leads to sufferers being accused of coming under the influence of demons.

This is something Dr Radcliffe Lisk, 62, has witnessed first-hand – and is determined to change as more than 80 per cent of people with epilepsy in Africa are not receiving treatment.

In 2010, after setting up an award-winning epilepsy service at Basildon Hospital where he has worked for a decade, he took a 12-month unpaid sabbatical to work in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with the Lumley Government Hospital and the UK charity Medical Assistance Sierra Leone.

He has seen people sustain horrendous injuries as a consequence of poor medical provisions and inefficient awareness of the true nature of the condition.

Now, more than a year later, he has returned to Basildon, having helped set up four epilepsy clinics in the troubled country, three in the capital Freetown, and one in Bo.

Dr Radcliffe said: “These are not like the clinics you see in Basildon or Orsett.

“There are no appointments. All the patients come at once at 8 o’clock in the morning.” The scale of need for Dr Lisk’s help is so great that people travel for many miles to try to be seen.

He said: “When we had our first information service in Bo, 374 epilepsy patients were already waiting for us when we arrived. After two days, we still had not seen to everyone, and it was then that we decided this city needed its own clinic!”

The war may be over for Sierra Leone, but the country is still badly suffering, not just through a lack of medical infrastructure.

Epilepsy for a lot of sufferers in the country comes as a result of injuries sustained and left untreated since the civil war, such shrapnel in the brain which causes the seizures.

Dr Lisk, who grew up in Sierra Leone, said: “I have seen a lot of horrific things over there, patients suffering extensive burns where they have had an epileptic fit and fallen into an open fire while they were cooking.

“The problem is a lot of people do not even believe epilepsy is an illness and so do not seek treatment. Even the most literate of people think that it is contagious or that epileptic people are in some way possessed.”

A lot of the work overseen by the clinics includes trying to eliminate the stigma surrounding the disease and eradicating people’s misconceptions.

This they do by putting up information posters and hosting public seminars with influential members of the community so that the truth about epilepsy can spread.

Dr Lisk, who lives in Woodford Green, said: “My main concern is the exclusion that goes on, especially for children who, when they are seen to have seizures, are banned from schooling.

“This is not something that is going to go in one generation; a lot of the work involves changing people’s attitudes.”

However, the top consultant remains positive things can change for the better, with the number of new patients admitted to the clinics increasing every day.

He said: “It is very fulfilling to feel I am making a real difference. Having grown up there, I have a great emotional attachment to Sierra Leone, and I feel a sense of duty to go back and do what I can for the country.”

Dr Lisk, is currently back in Sierra Leone, to oversee the work he started within the clinics.

He is hoping to open an epilepsy centre in each of the twelve districts of Sierra Leone.

The consultant is also looking to secure funding for a second electrocardiography machinery to enable staff to better diagnose patients.