AN ASSESSMENT OF EQUIPMENT PROCUREMENT AND MANAGEMENT POLICIES IN RADIOLOGY CENTRES IN NIGERIA

Background: A well organised equipment procurement and maintenance policy in radiology departments is critical for prompt and efficient health care delivery. Objective: To assess the equipment procurement and management policies in radiology departments in Nigeria with a view to finding the possible causes of frequent breakdown. Materials and methods: A survey was carried out in radiology departments of 13 Government Tertiary health care institutions. Ten Teaching and three Specialist Hospitals in South East, South West and North East of Nigeria were chosen for the study. One hundred and four (104) questionnaires of semi-structured type were distributed to the key players such as radiographers, who are the end users, hospital administrators, and hospital equipment engineers. The questionnaires sought to find out the procedure for equipment acquisition, the presence or absence of pre and post equipment certification, quality assurance program and planned preventive maintenance. Results: In most of the hospitals (11 of 13 hospitals) the radiographers were not involved in the course of planning, acquisition and delivery of the radiology equipments. It was also found out that only two of the hospitals had Quality Assurance program and none had Planned Preventive Maintenance programing place. Conclusion: There was absence of organized policy to involve the end users in the process of equipment procurement in most of the hospitals studied. Little presence of quality assurance program and complete absence of planned preventive maintenance were observed in all the hospitals. This may have accounted for the frequent breakdown, large numbers of unserviceable equipment and long down time when faults developed.