The University of Zimbabwe has appointed an astute and widely researched Nigerian an external examiner to the radiology department. The appointee, Dr. Anthony Ugwu, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Radiography and Radiological Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and an African pioneer researcher in gut Sonography, was spotted in the cyberspace by the university of Zimbabwe management in view of his over one hundred published papers and close to two hundred google scholar citations. 

 

While in Zimbabwe, he is expected to carry out duties including validating marked scripts, remarking of research papers and participating in clinical viva voce examinations. After completion of these duties, he is expected to send a report on the B.Sc radiography (Diagnostic) prgramme  to the Vice Chancellor. 

 

After being applauded by some executive  members of the Medical Imaging Society of Nigeria (MISON) today (17th June, 2017) in Abuja prior to his departure from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport, Dr. Ugwu invited media men and bared his mind on the current NCR Bill.

 

Reacting to this bill on the floor of the national assembly, he noted that it is highly unfortunate and inconsistent with natural growth that at a time the Nigerian radiographers are being made world consultants, our government is entertaining a bill that will take our radiography training and practice back to the stone age.

 

The NCR bill according to Dr. Ugwu is an exercise in legislative plagiarism being a duplication of the statutory function of the Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria as contained in  the Radiographers Registration Act. According to him, this legislative plagiarism will jeopardize clinical peace in this country and impugn patient care. It is like encouraging somebody to pull down his brother's house, dismantle the blocks from where he now takes blocks to build his own house. 

 

Radiography is the father of Radiology having started first and it would amounts to revisionism if we create a scenario that would depict otherwise. Radiography is an independent professional body and regulated in Nigeria by Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria (RRBN), while Radiology is an arm of the Medical Profession under the auspices of Medial and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN). In UK, these bodies are under the regulatory frameworks of Heath  Professional Council and General Medical Council, respectively. Creating an omnibus council which would not only bring two different though obviously overlapping professional bodies together but makes the father (radiography) appear like an appendage to the son (radiology) would amount to a clinical harakiri and an administrative seppuku. Radiologists predominantly have their first degrees and post-graduate fellowships. Radiographers are not only poised to start their Nigerian and West African Fellowships like their colleagues in Nursing, Pharmacy and Medical Laboratory Sciences, but many radiographers also have Masters and Doctorate degrees. It would amount to revisionism if someone who has the highest degree in learning (PhD) is put perpetually under another person who obviously could be his student. 

 

The positive side of this controversial bill is that it  will gradually open up the lopsided health professional structure  which the government has not addressed for years. Many processionals like Nurses, Doctors and Laboratory Scientists award Professional Fellowships after courses of training but only those of the doctors have been made PhD equivalents in the university systems. Those that have been involved in the core clinical and academic research over the years can tell the difference between PhD and clinical fellowship. The PhD is purely academic  suitable for the university system which is predominantly an academic environment. Fellowship is purely clinical and hence should not in any way or in any part of the world be made to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with  PhD. This is why many medical doctors choose to pursue post graduate degrees even after obtaining the postgraduate fellowships. In many foreign hospitals where our honorable men, academics, businessmen and captains of industries have visited for heath reasons or otherwise, it has been observed that health administrators are made heads of hospitals, not doctors, unlike the situation in Nigeria. This NCR Bill has also excerbated the hitherto frosty relationship between the  radiographers and the radiologists. Radiographers have long been agitating for their own department to enable them have a place in the hospital organizational chart but this professional right has been denied by previous health ministers who are predominantly medical doctors. This denial of professional right to an autonomous profession is only being suffered by radiographers among all other health professionals in this country. The attachment of radiographers as appendages to the radiology departments may have given the Machiavellian  proponents of the NCR Bill the impression that the government hates radiographers and would always dance to the tunes of the enemies of the  radiographers. He used this opportunity to call on the federal executive council to direct the ministry of health to generate memos in this regard to all chief executives of federal health institutions.  The sincerity and moral ingenuity of Mr President and the jurisprudencial acumen of the Vice President are as reliable as they are consistent. Nigerians who believe in equity are expecting the National Universities Commission (NUC) and our honorable parliamentarians to come up with policy directions and bills which would address all these lopsidednesses and convince every Nigerian that our country is not George Orwell's animal farm where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. It is also expected that our legislators would liaise with health-institutions based trade unions like NUAHP to propose bills which would enable other health professionals train as residents in tertiary institutions. Nigeria is a developing economy and cannot afford to move in a reverse gear. There is no place in the world that all these  happen.

 

In an environment riddled with rancour, anger, bitterness, subjugation and perceived deprivations, it would be very clear that the patient care would suffer superlative setbacks.

 

If this bill is passed and signed into law, the organisational  structure nationwide would be unstable  as a result of the attendant acrimony, and quacks will cash in on this lacuna to be dispensing ionising radiations especially in private centres. This would obviously increase cancer risk in Nigeria.

 

In a related development, if this revisionist bill sails through, other specialties in medicine: gynaecology, urology, ophthalmology, cardiology and pathology would seek their own omnibus council in addition to their parent council (MDCN). Radiography, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy, Medical records, Physiotherapy and Engineering also have several postgraduate specialty areas. These specialists would also match to the national assembly to seek their own council based on precedence. In less than five years, we would have a country with over five hundred councils. In the end, councils but not agriculture, health, or education would be taking greater percentage of our national budget. This will make a  mockery of our  democracy. 

 

The federal government should rather make policies and design legislative frameworks that would support RRBN economically, personnel and security-wise, so that the monitoring exercises would be more regular and aggressively decisive.

 

Dr (Sir) Anthony Ugwu who is also a Catholic Knight of St. Mulumbar, also, promised to address the international media in his third day in Zimbabwe on this current legislative concept and the possible imbroglio that would be concomitant. His academic tour would be concluded in a couple of days  and he is expected to return to the country by month end.