Radiographers have called on the Federal Government to put a machinery in place to curb medical tourism overseas, even as the they called for audit of the current standard of practice of healthcare professionals in comparison with the world best practices to curb the ugly scenarios.

President of the Association of Radiographers of Nigeria (ARN), Dr Mark Okeji, who made the call during the 46th Annual Conference of the association in Ilorin, Kwara State recently, stated that the rush for overseas medical tourism is growing in Nigeria because of poor attitude of medical professionals towards their work.

"At present in Nigeria, there are lots of capital flight associated with medical tourism, not because we do not have the requisite personnel or equipment, but majorly because of our attitude to work as medical professionals.

"In Europe and the United States of America, health professionals Nigerians rush to consult are sometimes Nigerians working in those countries. The question is, 'why can't we replicate the healthcare system in those countries here in Nigeria?' The current situation in our hospitals calls for introspection among health professionals," he said.

Okeji urged the government to establish more training centres for radiography study in Nigerian universities to reduce quackery in the profession, even as he regretted that Kwara State does not have a single radiographer in its employ.

"We have on record that the Kwara State Government has no radiographer in its employ. This is highly regrettable, and we hope that radiographers should be employed immediately to save the lives of her citizens and safeguard the state's investment in radiography equipment," he said.

Urging the Federal Ministry of Health to include the training of therapy radiographers in the current plan to establish more cancer treatment centres, the radiographer said Nigeria "currently has less than 30 therapy radiographers."

To end the ongoing strike by healthcare providers, Okeji appealed to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, "to approve the implementation of the collective agreement reached with Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) to end the current industrial action".

On Yayale Ahmed committee's report, he said: "I will like to call on the Federal Government to expedite action and release the Yayale Ahmed committee's report on inter-professional relationships in the public health sector. The committee is expected to provide a road map on how our hospitals should be run such as the appointment of professional health administrators to run our health institutions in line with global best practices, constant audit of the clinical practice in our hospitals and autonomy for radiographers. These will encourage professionalism and reduce the inter-professional rivalry in our health care system."

He added that radiographers should be part of procurement procedures. "The ministries of health at the federal and state levels should ensure that radiographers are part of the procurement committees to reverse the current trend where expensive non-functional radiography equipment litter the hospitals because of supply of suboptimal equipment by vendors."