By Mercy Ibe
Enugu
Association of Radiographers of Nigeria (ARN), Enugu State chapter, has expressed worry over the rapid growth of medical tourism abroad by the citizens.
At this year’s World Radiography Day held in Enugu on Thursday, Prof Kenneth Agwu from the Department of Radiography and Radiology Sciences, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus decried the huge amount of money spent on medical treatment abroad.
He said that citizens were forced to embark on medical tourism in other countries due to lack of equipment in Nigeria health facilities.
His words: “We are all aware that most medical tourisms are based on diagnosis and they leave Nigeria for treatment abroad because of lack of equipment. If the equipment were brought into this country, we have professionals to take care of their cases in Nigeria.
“Most of our people especially the big men, the politicians and others find it easy to go abroad to receive the same attention we would have given to them in Nigerian.
“Another problem is lack of motivation and good remuneration for medical professionals which has also forced so many of them to relocate abroad and practice, these are issues which all of us are not happy with because we have enough manpower, we have professionals to take care of these issues in Nigeria because of lack of equipment and they are not well motivated, they are not available for practice in the country” he said.
According to him, “Radiography profession is not being supported by government. Equipment that are available in other country are not available in this country. Hundreds of our professionals especially from this school are finding working places abroad because of poor remuneration and unavailability of equipment.”
Agwu appealed to government at all levels to equip the health facilities with sophisticated equipment, saying, “we want the government to do something about this problem because if all these are available the poor and the rich will benefit and live a healthy life. Disease has no boundary, it doesn’t no whether you are rich or poor; so if an average Nigeria can have access to them, it’s going to be better for all of us”.
Also, the State Chairman of ARN, Mr Gregory Chinedu Omah, described Radiography as the eye of medicine, saying, “Radiography is the eye to see the entire things within the body.”
He said the commemoration is to celebrate the discovery of X-ray which he described as an accidental discovery that turned around a lot of things in Medicine, adding, “before now, if there is any need to find out something that is wrong within, then you have to open up to go in to find out but now with X-ray, you can see right inside the person and that is why we say Radiography is the eye of medicine.
“We also want to use the commemoration to create an awareness on Radiography as well as try to encourage students to choose Radiography as a career. Before now people do not know much about Radiography but this is a way of getting people to know about what the Radiography is all about in the medical field,” he said.
