The Management of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital LUTH has said that with the graduation of 18 biomedical engineers at the hospital, the era of medical equipment being abandoned or discarded because of minor faults is now over.
The Chief Medical Director of LUTH, Prof. Chris Bode who spoke during the graduation ceremony and award of certificates to the graduands trained at the School of Biomedical Engineering, LUTH, organised and sponsored by General Electric Foundation in affiliation with Duke University, USA, expressed happiness at the initiative of GEF and the impact it will bring in the country’s medical system. “Nigeria was rife with medical equipment bought and used for few months, a year or two and maybe, a fuse or something minor happens to it,and they were parked. And with the culture of wastage we have, people are encouraged to go and buy new ones and we end up with a lot of dead equipment.
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“Now when we don’t even have the money, it is only wise that we have trained manpower that will undertake simple maintenance and repairs of medical equipment to give us longer uptime and very little downtime. This saves lives and money and everybody benefits,’ Bode added. Speaking, the Programme Director, Engineering World Health (EWH), Prof. Carmen Walker, urged the graduates of the 2016 EWH Class on Biomedical Engineering Training Programme to be passionate about their profession and realize that they now have a responsibility to humankind to save them by saving medical equipment.
Carmen who emotionally recalled how the dream to set up the training programme in this very important medical field to help improve health care through medical equipment, was born 18 years ago at the University of Lagos by Late Prof. Olusola, who in his inaugural lecture, informed the graduands that they are the hope that was commanded to come into existence to take health care to a new level in Nigeria. “You have been charged to walk a higher path.
You have been given the greatest of all tools to complete your task, that is the tools of knowledge. You are Medical First, Patient Driven to do what you do best. You do not study to pass the test, you study to prepare for the day when you are the only thing standing between a patient and the grave. “This torch that burns brightly in me, the passion for our profession, I now pass to you. You have a responsibility to human kind; to save them by saving medical equipment.” On her part, the GEF representative, Lilian Okoye, urged the graduands to use the knowledge they acquired to save lives, ensure uptime of medical equipment that will allow for quality health care delivery in the country.
She stated that the programme is “built on GEs commitment to capacity building in Nigeria and successes from previous Biomedical Engineering Training Programmes in countries like Rwanda, Honduras, Cambodia and Ghana,” adding: “At the end of this programme, we would have created a centre of excellence at LUTH, which will serve as a model for other training institutions in the whole of West Africa.
This is our highest expectation.” Okoye further disclosed that with the successful training and graduation of the 18 participants, the Foundation has been able to train 37 Nigerians, as 19 people were trained in 2015 in the inaugural programme. This she said is geared towards training local resource to solve the peculiar challenges encountered within the country. A representative of the graduands, Aliyu Abubakar, expressed appreciation for the opportunity given them to undergo the course, assuring that world class knowledge which they have learnt from seasoned lecturers from around the world will be utilized for the benefit of Nigeria’s health system.
By: Chioma Obinna
The Vanguard News
ABUJA: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
PORTHARCOURT: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
LAGOS: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
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