Hospital makes case for orthopaedic courses at BUK, others

The Medical Director, National Orthopedic Hospital Dala Kano, Dr Muhammad Nuhu Salihu, has identified the urgent need for collaboration between the hospital and universities in the state to float more BSc courses in orthopedic-related field with a view to train more hands to deal with emerging concerns in orthopedic practice. He made the call in […]

The Medical Director, National Orthopedic Hospital Dala Kano, Dr Muhammad Nuhu Salihu, has identified the urgent need for collaboration between the hospital and universities in the state to float more BSc courses in orthopedic-related field with a view to train more hands to deal with emerging concerns in orthopedic practice.

He made the call in an address at the 7th combined convocation ceremony for 12 sets of Schools of Post Basic Nursing Studies and Orthopaedic Cast Technology which was part of activities scheduled to mark the 60th anniversary celebration of the hospital.

He said the hospital had planned to float a diploma programme in Prothesis to train willing candidates in the production of artificial limbs but had to shelve off the plan because of the desire to upgrade the existing courses at the schools of Post Basic Nursing and Orthopaedic Cast Technology to BSc status.

He said; “Our fourth school would have been called the School of Prosthetics and the School of Orthotics, that is the school that is supposed to teach people how to make artificial limbs. Today in this country, we have only one of these schools and it is in Lagos. We had planned to go into this particular school but we recognized that the diploma that we are giving to the school of orthopaedic cast technology needs to be upgraded to BSc but because we are not a university we cannot run a BSc programme.”

“We therefore approached all the universities around Kano, Bayero University, Federal University of Technology both the one in Dutse and the one in Wudil and then the Northwest University to also let them know that there is a viable course that they need to run for the sake of the society – a BSc programme in Prosthetics and orthotics, BSc in orthopedic cast technology, BSc in speech therapy and BSc in occupational therapy.

“All these four can be put together under faculty of allied health sciences. If all this is done we would be helping our society because we need graduates from all these four to come out with BSc rather than diplomas

The Deputy Governor of Kano State, Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, who was represented by the Director General, state’s Hospital Management Board, Dr Nasir Alhassan Kabo, promised to explore other possibilities to ensure that the programmes were run at BSc level either in BUK or state owned universities.