Monday, June 7, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Patients rights
It is a rampant thing from my years of experience in the field especially at the centre in Lagos, that a prosthesis or orthosis is fabricated for a patient and the patient just stands up, walks twice or thrice with the appliance and says thank you to the service provider and off he or she goes with a wobbling and very far from normal gait that is expected.
The ignorance of amputees and people with musculoskeletal deformities as to optimum gait is to the advantage of the service provider who takes solace in this and hence fabricates a below par appliance.
Patients should acquaint themselves with the trend in prosthetics and orthotics to be able to challenge the functionability, cosmesis and durability of the appliance being made for them. It is not a slap on the service provider if the patient queries the above mentioned but it is to show and tell the provider to either buckle up his or her shoes or go for further studies which would enlighten him or her more..
In the developed countries, clients do come together to form associations like Amputee forum, Wheelchair users association etc; this is a good concept that can be absorbed by the disability population of Nigeria as well.
There are very few at the moment that are known for spinal cord clients and disabled population in general but smaller specific ones that can focus on a special group should be looked into e.g. for amputees.
When going for a prosthesis or orthosis, get yourself acquainted to what the appliance should offer and you are a step closer to getting an appliance that will offer you the three qualities mentioned earlier which are functionability, cosmesis and durability.
The ignorance of amputees and people with musculoskeletal deformities as to optimum gait is to the advantage of the service provider who takes solace in this and hence fabricates a below par appliance.
Patients should acquaint themselves with the trend in prosthetics and orthotics to be able to challenge the functionability, cosmesis and durability of the appliance being made for them. It is not a slap on the service provider if the patient queries the above mentioned but it is to show and tell the provider to either buckle up his or her shoes or go for further studies which would enlighten him or her more..
In the developed countries, clients do come together to form associations like Amputee forum, Wheelchair users association etc; this is a good concept that can be absorbed by the disability population of Nigeria as well.
There are very few at the moment that are known for spinal cord clients and disabled population in general but smaller specific ones that can focus on a special group should be looked into e.g. for amputees.
When going for a prosthesis or orthosis, get yourself acquainted to what the appliance should offer and you are a step closer to getting an appliance that will offer you the three qualities mentioned earlier which are functionability, cosmesis and durability.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Level of Prosthetics and Orthotics in Nigeria
It is supposed to be a profession that exists as long as people with physical disablilities, amputees and all other clients that requires the service of this department exists.
The founding members of the profession in Nigeria are long out of it due to aging and death but they forgot to leave replacements early enough hence a young generation of professionals are just coming up to save the profession from extinction in the country.
This move led to the training of six (6) Orthopaedic technologists spread across the three (3) orthopaedic hospitals in Nigeria. Although the spread is not even with four of them at a particular centre while the remaining two centres have one each. Out of the six technologists, two returned to pursue their Bachelor of Science degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics of which i happen to be one of those two.
My point is this, for a country with 150million people and the number of prothetics and orthotics professionals available to serve a disability population of almost 15million, there is need for more people to be trained both locally as well as internationally.
The government has succeeded in establishing a Prosthetics and Orthotics School in Lagos named Federal College of Orthopaedic Technology (FECOT) which is a plus to them; the only thing i see about it now is that the college should be independent and autonomous so that it can follow international standards that would lead to its being recognised internationally.
Students are to be well grounded in the practical field at this level of education. and the tutors well trained for such tasks.
If this can be achieved, we can be looking at a new dawn for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Nigeria.
The founding members of the profession in Nigeria are long out of it due to aging and death but they forgot to leave replacements early enough hence a young generation of professionals are just coming up to save the profession from extinction in the country.
This move led to the training of six (6) Orthopaedic technologists spread across the three (3) orthopaedic hospitals in Nigeria. Although the spread is not even with four of them at a particular centre while the remaining two centres have one each. Out of the six technologists, two returned to pursue their Bachelor of Science degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics of which i happen to be one of those two.
My point is this, for a country with 150million people and the number of prothetics and orthotics professionals available to serve a disability population of almost 15million, there is need for more people to be trained both locally as well as internationally.
The government has succeeded in establishing a Prosthetics and Orthotics School in Lagos named Federal College of Orthopaedic Technology (FECOT) which is a plus to them; the only thing i see about it now is that the college should be independent and autonomous so that it can follow international standards that would lead to its being recognised internationally.
Students are to be well grounded in the practical field at this level of education. and the tutors well trained for such tasks.
If this can be achieved, we can be looking at a new dawn for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Nigeria.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
