The Kano State Commissioner for Health, Dr Abubakar Labaran, says the state has no speech physiotherapist, forcing patients in need of specialised rehabilitation services to travel to other locations for treatment.
Labaran said the state government is taking steps to address the shortage by sponsoring physiotherapists for specialised training to ensure that residents could access the services locally.
The commissioner spoke at the 66th Annual Scientific Conference and 67th Annual General Meeting of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy held in Kano.
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The conference featured sub-themes on strategic advocacy and policy engagement for integrating physiotherapy into Nigeria’s public health system, as well as rehabilitation across the lifespan, focusing on disabilities arising from non-communicable diseases, trauma and infectious diseases.
According to Labaran, the state government has expanded physiotherapy units across four of its hospitals in recognition of the vital role the profession plays in healthcare delivery.
He added that plans were underway to establish a centre of excellence in physiotherapy at the Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, Kano.
“We realised that we don’t have a single speech physiotherapist in Kano and perhaps in the entire North. We either have to bring a specialist from Ibadan or travel there.
“We have therefore decided to sponsor physiotherapists to specialise in this area so that the services will be available in Kano,” he said.
The Registrar of the Medical Rehabilitation Therapists Board of Nigeria, Professor Rufai Ahmed, who represented the Minister of State for Health, Dr Isaac Salako, emphasised the importance of training physiotherapists in specialised fields where services were unavailable.
Ahmed said the board would send a team to assist state-owned hospitals in securing the necessary accreditation for physiotherapy services.
He reaffirmed the ministry’s commitment to the profession, stressing the need to strengthen training institutions to improve service delivery despite existing challenges.
The President of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy, Dr Felix Oyinlola Odusanya, said the conference theme reflected a renewed commitment to advancing the profession and expanding its contribution to healthcare delivery.
He said the association was looking forward to the approval of a national rehabilitation policy and the release of the Doctor of Physiotherapy scheme of service in the health sector.
According to him, Nigeria has 60 physiotherapy training institutions, while the National Universities Commission has recently approved a five-year Doctor of Physiotherapy degree programme.
Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Umar Faruk, said the conference provided an important platform for discussions on reducing disability and pain while highlighting the role of physiotherapy in public health.
The governor stressed that physiotherapy should be recognised as an integral component of comprehensive healthcare services for injured persons, older people and persons with disabilities.
Senator Bello Hayatu Gwarzo, who attended the event in a wheelchair, shared his rehabilitation experience following surgery in Germany, which he said had enabled him to stand and move without support.
In his presentation, the guest speaker, Dr Felix Abraham Obi, lamented that although Nigeria trains physiotherapists, the healthcare system does not adequately deploy them to leadership positions where they could contribute to policy formulation and decision-making.
He noted that there was no physiotherapist serving as a director in the Federal Ministry of Health or at the state level.
