Janet Ogundepo
The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria, Prof. Mark Okeji, says the country currently has only 4,800 radiographers and even fewer sonographers.
He said the figure was inadequate and would not meet the healthcare needs of Nigeria’s population of over 200 million.
Okeji noted that the specialty was further impacted by the ongoing mass exodus of healthcare professionals, which led to a shortage of skilled personnel.
“If you add all the sonographers and radiographers in our register, there are not up to 5,000. There are in the range of 4,800 in this country, which is not enough,” the RRBN registrar said.
However, he noted that the board had established more programmes in the universities to train more radiographers and sonographers, emphasising that in the next five years, the country would have enough practitioners.
“But the board has done quite a great thing in the last six years that I took over. We have established more programs in universities than has ever been. Currently, we have up to 23 universities offering the program. When I took over, there were about eight, but now we have started improving.
“I assure you that in the next three, four, five years we’ll be able to produce enough human resources,” Okeji said.
Okeji made this statement on the sidelines of the 12th Annual Conference of the Association of Medical Ultrasound Practitioners of Nigeria, held recently in Lagos themed, “Standard Obstetrics and Gynaecological Ultrasound Protocol.”
PUNCH Healthwise reports that over 75 per cent of Nigerian-trained health workers have left the country for opportunities abroad.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, in March, described the health sector as “barely managing,” stating that the government was beginning to take steps to “expand training and work environment.”
Speaking on the conference theme, Okeji stated that ultrasound was important in all aspects of medicine to ensure adequate diagnosis.
He further noted that ultrasound scans had improved medical assessment of a foetus, its viability, motion and presentation, without causing harm to the foetus.
The don added that the board planned to train more sonographers and deploy them to the Primary Health Care Centres to ensure accurate diagnosis and better health outcomes.
“That’s why the Radiographers’ Registration Board of Nigeria has taken the bull by the horns to start this training. Before now, we trained radiographers and encouraged them to specialise in sonography but now, we have brought people in critical health players to come and be trained in ultrasound to get health closer to the people.
“We are hoping that with what we are doing, we get sonographers to the Primary Health Care centres in this country so that pregnant women who access these PHCs can now have the basic, simple ultrasound to assess their foetus, presentation and advise the midwives that are there on the status of the foetus,” Okeji said.
The don further decried the Japa syndrome noting that most health practitioners were trained for both the European markets and Nigeria.
He said, “We have a challenge that we’re training for Nigeria and European markets. Every radiographer that graduates today will want to go to Japa. So we are trying to balance that by training more. We train more to ensure that the Honourable Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Tunji Alausa, has empowered us to go ahead and increase our training quotas in the universities to improve the human resources that we have now. Human resources are critical in health, and if you don’t have them, you won’t have anybody.”
The registrar further stated that the board was ensuring strict regulation, monitoring and supervision of the practice, stating that punishment would be meted to persons who violated the training codes.
“So what the board is putting in place is to make sure that people are properly trained by requisite professionals, they undergo the tutelage under supervision, and we’re able to also punish people who violate some of the codes that we put in place. So the board will not only encourage training but will ensure that people who are trained practice within the confines of their training,” the don said.
Dr Olabode Adewunmi
Also speaking with PUNCH Healthwise, the AMUPN President, Dr Olabode Adewunmi, decried the manpower shortage facing the practice.
He stated that the ratio of sonographers to the Nigerian population was one to 250,000 citizens, describing the situation as terrible.
Adewunmi further emphasised the importance of ultrasound machines, noting that using state-of-the-art equipment made diagnosis easy.
“Of course, we are also affected with Japa syndrome. Sonographers are hotcakes anywhere in the world. So we need the government to create an enabling environment. We need institutions to come up where ultrasound training to PhD level can be encouraged. But an enabling environment by the government will help these things to come into play. And then, if you have government subsidising equipment, especially in sourcing for brand new equipment, I think it’s going to go a long way in helping the profession.
“I’m looking forward to a time when we have more than enough sonographers in Nigeria to look after the healthcare needs of Nigerians and where pregnant women and other people in need of ultrasound scans are in safe hands.
“We (sonographers) are like the eye of medicine, if you mislead whoever is the doctor, then there will be problems. So, it’s a food for thought for all of us,” the AMUPN president said.
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