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Nigeria: X-Ray Machines in Nigeria Obsolete - NNRA
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This Day (Lagos)
26 March 2008
Posted to the web 26 March 2008
Michael Olugbode
Maiduguri
Director- General, Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), Professor Shamsideen Babatunde Elegba, yesterday said over 35 per cent x-ray machines in the country are over 25-years-old and long past their prime.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of national training course organised by NNRA, in collaboration with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for radiation safety officers (RSOs) in diagnostic and interventional radiology in Maiduguri, Elegba, represented by Professor Fatai Balogun, said most of the x-ray machines in use in Nigeria are either obsolete or second-hand without manual or spare parts.
He said NNRA, in a survey of diagnostic radiology centres in the country between 2004 and 2005, discovered that all is not well with the practice in the country, as most of the facilities fall short of the standard and are rather operating illegally. Elegba said there are over 60 different brands of x-ray machines, with six brands accountable for about 70 per cent of all the machines, while only one of the brands has a viable workshop in the country.
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He said it was pathetic that the private sector has the largest percentage of the machines in good working condition, with those owned by state governments in the worst condition, while maintenance/repairs are done by quacks, without due regards to manufacturers' specification and radiation safety.
He said more worrisome is the fact that though the country has over 20,000 radiation workers, there are only about 500 qualified radiation safety officers in the entire country, even as this remain the major requirement for licensing a facility for ionizing radiation.
He said the Agency will soon clampdown on machines older than 15 years, adding that the situation where any obsolete machine in Europe and the Americas found there way into the country is no longer acceptable.
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