He made the call on Saturday in a keynote address at the 7th combined convocation ceremony for 12 sets of Schools of Post Basic Nursing Studies and Orthopedic 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 shelved the plan because of the desire to upgrade the existing courses at the schools of Post Basic Nursing and Orthopedic Cast Technology to BSc status.
“Our fourth school, the School of Prosthetics and the School of Orthotics – that is the school that is supposed to teach people how to make artificial limbs – would have been celebrated today. In this country, we have only one of this school and it is in Lagos.
“We had planned to go into this particular school but we recognised that the diploma that we are giving at the school of orthopedic cast technology needs to be upgraded to BSc and 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 viable course that they need to run for the sake of the society. There is need to start a BSc programme in Prosthetics and orthotics, BSc in orthopedic cast technology, BSc in speech therapy and BSc in occupational therapy.
He said all the four courses could be run together under the faculty of allied health sciences, emphasising that “if all this is done, we would be helping our society.
“I want to urge the representatives of various schools, particularly BUK and the Northwest University, to move closer to us for us all to make this a reality; and I want to inform them with emphasis that the labs to run these particular schools are already here. They do not need to invest in the laboratory, we have the equipment, we have the technical know-how,” he said.
The Deputy Governor of Kano State, Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, who was represented at the occasion as the special guest of honour by the Director General, state’s Hospital Management Board, Dr Nasir Alhassan Kabo, promised to brief the governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje about the aspiration to upgrade the courses to BSc status for effective service delivery.
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