The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, has said that weak partnerships and the lack of structured training programmes are undermining the maintenance of hospital equipment, leading to its deterioration.
He made the remark on Tuesday at the opening of a five-day capacity-building workshop for biomedical engineers in Abuja.
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Mr Salako, who was represented by his Special Assistant, Babatunde Akinyemi, noted that the programme was organised by the ministry in collaboration with Healthy Living Communications Ltd and the College of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.
He said the programme reflects the government’s commitment to fostering strong partnerships and enhancing technical capacity in healthcare maintenance.
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According to him, biomedical engineers are vital to keeping medical devices for diagnosis, treatment, and patient monitoring in proper working condition.
He said their importance became clearer during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that even the most advanced machines would remain underutilised or dysfunctional without them.
About the workshop
Mr Salako said the workshop sought to refresh engineers’ skills and reposition them to safeguard the country’s expanding stock of health assets.
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He listed ongoing interventions, including upgrades in biomedical engineering schools, staff retraining, a national maintenance framework, and a nationwide audit of high-end equipment.
“These efforts form part of the Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative to strengthen infrastructure, digitalisation and workforce capacity,” he said.
He added that participants were expected to gain the competence required to maintain key devices and return to their institutions as change agents capable of reducing downtime.
Mr Salako urged Chief Medical Directors and heads of biomedical units to ensure that knowledge gained at the workshop was shared with other technical staff.
He said the ministry would continue to provide an enabling environment to ensure that biomedical engineering practices in Nigeria meet global standards.
In her remarks, the Director of Hospital Services, Abisola Adegoke, said equipment could only serve their purpose when properly installed, maintained and safeguarded.
Ms Adegoke,represented by Francisca Okafor, director of Regulatory School Division, said the training reawakens biomedical engineers to their critical responsibilities.
“Equipment is only as effective as the professionals who operate it,” she said.
Ms Adegoke said government investments in modern medical equipment must be matched with strong technical capacity and sustained maintenance systems.
The chief trainer, Awafung Adie, said the future of Nigeria’s healthcare system depended partly on the quality of biomedical engineers being developed today.
Mr Adie said biomedical personnel must evolve “from equipment repairers to healthcare technology managers, innovators and leaders.”
He said the programme directly addressed issues such as prolonged downtime, poor maintenance culture, inadequate manpower and dependence on foreign technical support.
The CEO of Healthy Living Communications Ltd., Emmanuel Oriakhi, said the idea for the programme had been nurtured for more than 10 years.
Mr Oriakhi said visits to hospitals revealed equipment that could have been functioning was abandoned due to a lack of routine maintenance and inadequate knowledge updates.
He added that biomedical practitioners must continually upgrade their skills to keep pace with evolving medical devices.
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CEO of PROTEX Healthcare, Dominiek Viaene, said the company invested heavily in Nigeria to help improve maintenance culture and treatment outcomes.
Mr Viaene noted that dialysis survival rates differed sharply between Nigeria and Europe, despite the use of similar machines and consumables.
“There must be something wrong; it can be in maintenance or in the way procedures are carried out, ” he said.
He warned that unsafe practices such as switching off safety detectors endangered patients’ lives.
He said the company is committed to supporting regular training, adding that “together, we are much stronger than individual initiatives.”
He called for collaboration among government, hospitals and biomedical engineers to drive lasting improvements in the health sector. (NAN)
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