The Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria, an agency of the Federal Government, has arrested some fake radiographers and also sealed the X-ray units of some hospitals in Imo State.
Some of the impostors had been working as radiographers at the X-ray units of some of the hospitals, the agency said.
Among the affected hospitals are the Amanda Hospital, O/C Medical and X-ray Services, Holy Rosary Hospital; Christina Hospital; and Mothercare Diagnostic Centre, all in Owerri, the Imo State capital.
The body warned that patients might contract cancer patronising unqualified radiographers.
A statement issued in Abuja on Friday by the spokesperson for RRBN, Maimuna Wakawa, quoted the registrar and the chief executive of the board, Mr. Michael Okpaleke, as saying that the regulatory agency “clamped down on the hospitals in order to rid the radiography practice of quacks and quackery.”
He vowed that the board was determined to remove quacks from the practice of medical radiography in the country and would not stop until it succeeds.
According to him, the mission of the RRBN was “to monitor and regulate the activities of personnel who administer X-rays on people to know if they are qualified.”
He said it was the right of patients to see the operational license of the person administering X-rays to them to ascertain if they are qualified before carrying out the X-ray.
Okpaleke said that the RRBN would not stop at sealing the poorly-equipped X-ray units in the hospitals.
According to him, the centres were operating with quacks in unprotected environments which posed health hazards to both the persons operating the X-ray machines and the patients.
Stating that the impostors would be prosecuted, he advised hospitals and X-ray servicing companies to register with the RRBN for effective monitoring.
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