The Registrar, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), Mr Augustine Ebisike has said that there is serious need for trained environmental health officers in the country otherwise the current health hazards would be compounded.

He said the present number of  Environmental Health Officers in the country is far too low to cope with incessant outbreaks of communicable, other diseases and environmental hazards.

This remark was contained in his address at the Thematic Mandatory Continuing Education programme for registered environmental health officers held at the UNICAL Conference Centre in which over 700 EHOs from many states in the country participated.

Mr Ebisike said that despite the dearth of  Environmental Health Officers, the profession may still lose up to 75 per cent of the number on register due to aging population, lamenting that this will further exacerbate the situation.

Chairman of Cross River State EHORECON, Sanitarian Peter Sylvanus Bassey, said that “the habitual conversion of non-registered and non-licensed EHOs by government agencies and private firms has negatively projected the image of the profession.”

Emphasising that the need for more EHOs or sanitary inspectors cannot be over-emphasised, he said:  “We hereby call on the federal, state and LGAs to urgently recruit and empower more  environmental health officers to enable them contribute to the improvement of environmental sanitation which will help the nation in the achievement of the reversal of the present unsustainable huge medical bills Nigerians are paying.” 

Demanding the immediate dismantling of various sanitation task forces, EHORECON lamented the invasion of the profession by quacks who harass hapless Nigerians, saying sanitation task forces were the creation of the military.

They also decried the neglect of trained EHO in governmental attention and recognition.

Chairman of EHORECON, Prof Oladao Afolabi, urged the EHOs to redouble their professional efforts at impacting the general health of the environment and become the force they have always been known.

Emphasising on their continual academic education, he said there are two universities which are offering Environmental Health as a course but that many more tertiary institutions will make it as a degree-awarding course.

Commissioner for Health in Cross River State, Prof Angela Oyo-Ita, represented by Dr Hilary Adie said there should be more emphasis on environmental health by giving more powers to the EHOs. 

She however lamented that EHOs compromised their role and worth.