The University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) on Wednesday commenced a refresher course for nephrology nurses to capture graduates in the field that were not trained before accreditation of the programme.
The Programme Coordinator, School of Post Basic Nephrology Nursing, UITH, Mrs Beatrice Segun-Agboola, said that refresher course, which was the first of its kind, was organised so that they can be duly registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
According to her, the training will last for four weeks with didactic lectures and two weeks of exposure to practical sessions.
The Chief Medical Director of UITH, Prof. DaSilva Yusuf, represented by Dr Louis Odega, stressed that refresher course was becoming a mandatory programme in every professional career, and asked the participants to be attentive and comply with the rules of the session.
“You are now confronted with different challenges in your experiences as nephrologists in your workplaces and this programme is targeted at addressing and exposing you to a lot of activities in the field,’’ he said.
Later in an interview with newsmen on the sidelines of the event, Mrs Segun-Agboola disclosed that there were only 500 nephrology nurses in the entire country.
She said that the major challenge in the profession is the inadequacy of manpower and infrastructure for treating patients with kidney infections, adding that such cases are on the increase.
“One of the causes of kidney infection is hypertension and diabetes and these are increasing on a daily basis in the country, and because of this, we need more manpower to take care of these patients.
“In fact, we don’t have schools of post basic nephrology in the country, UITH is the first in the country and we have one more in Abuja, these are the only two centres in Nigeria.
“Resulting in the inadequacy of manpower to meet the teeming patients suffering from kidney problems.
“There are just about 500 Nephrology nurses to take care of the Nigerian estimated population of 200 million.
“I am not saying 200 million people are suffering from kidney infections and diseases, but looking at the ratio of nephrology nurses to the population of the country, it is grossly inadequate.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government to increase the quota of training. For instance, we only have 30 slots allotted to UITH here to train. If the infrastructure is increased we can take more nurses that want to specialise in nephrology.
“The government needs to intervene to ensure that the infrastructures are there, the machines that we use for training are very expensive and most of these hospitals cannot afford to buy more than two,’’ she said.
