Arinola Olasumbo Sanya

"I will say within the prevailing environment, I am fairly satisfied, although we could have gone further."

"Physiotherapy started as an area of need after the Second World War.The British government sent about two physiotherapists from the UK to Nigeria to treat World War victims. And what they did was to gather few people who had school certificate and train them. Those trained were called physiotherapy technicians; they were trained at Igbobi Hospital. For a long time, these were the ones rendering services. But then, some Nigerians went to the UK to obtain the same qualification the Europeans had. The first ones that got there qualified in 1953 and came back to University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. We can say that was when we started properly."

"Remember that there was an era of brain drain in 1988 to 2000. And physiotherapy was one of most affected professions. It was as if we were training for export. There was a particular set of my students in 1990. Only one out of over 20 of them is left in Nigeria practicing. And they are doing great abroad."

"As the Americans acknowledged, it is cheaper to recruit than to train physiotherapists, because the cost of training is very high.Our training is dependent on very expensive equipment."

"UCH has more than 50 physiotherapists. But that particular hospital has 10 physiotherapists. So there is no way there can be effectiveness, because the few physiotherapists have to cover outpatient department and inpatients. We are talking of a hospital that has more than 500 beds capacity. So, we are missing."

"What is making people go away? They are not satisfied with their take home pay; they are not satisfied with the lifestyle they have to live. There are physiotherapists in state services and some of them have not been paid for seven months.And they have to pay more for fuel and electricity."

"If you keep upgrading some professionals and you let others shout before they get what they want, those who are not interested in shouting will look elsewhere."

"Its important to us in Africa to focus attention not only on those things which have come from outside, but on those that have evolved from within our own African environment and whom our society has acknowledged as a source of pride to us. It is within this"