Manifesto for Positive Change ASABA 2014 This is to solicit for your support and vote for the position of the President of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy (NSP) at the forth coming National Conference –ASABA 2014. NSP is a great society, and my vision is to make it a greater professional body that will be nationally and globally recognized as an epitome of professionalism, with its members having full autonomy of practice, high self esteem, advance and sound clinical skills, transformational scholarships and community service attitude. Below are some of the immediate projects that will set rolling once in the helms of affair. 1. Employment/Welfare: In order to prevent the crisis of unemployment that we foresee in the next 10 year due to the increasing number of PTs, a proactive measure need to be put in place (this is not saying that the number of PTs is enough for the population of our country, but the existing institutions are not expanding and only few or no new institutions are being established). i).We will therefore ensure a regulated the number of students being admitted into our various institutions based on National Universities Commission and MRTB standards. Other professionals in Medicine, dentistry, Nursing etc are already in control of this. Our society shall work with the MRTB to ensure this is done. ii). More doors for employment at States Sport centres, Professional football Clubs, Communities (primary health centers), and encourage collaboration in forming strong private clinics. We would also pay advocacy visits and lobby for employment of more physiotherapists where there are shortages of staff in line with MRTB standards. Presently some teaching hospitals with over 500 beds have less than 10 PTs while some have over 50 PTs 2. Practice and Patient Care: We intend to organize programmes that will improve Physiotherapists’ clinical competence in order to serve the patients/clients better. We shall provide guidelines; standards and procedures of managing common conditions that are amenable to PTs in the various specialties: The aim is to reduce variations in our practice (as the choices of treatments presently are always at the discretion of the PTs) and provide cost effective and evidence-based treatments. We shall raise panel of experts among clinicians, academics, researchers (Guidelines and Standards of practice Working Groups) to develop guidelines and Standards that are will be culturally adapted/accepted to Nigeria. The documents will pass through a peer-review process and will be approved by the National Executive council or at the AGM before being published in a reputable Journal after which there will be training the trainers’ workshops to educate the PTs in the use of the documents. We need to improve our quality of care in order to be more relevant in this era of chronic disease: This could be executed through: 3. Education and Research: DPT and Residency. We will realize the passage of Postgraduate Physiotherapy College of Nigeria bill at the National Assembly within the first year and commence operation of the programme immediately. The College shall be responsible for the award of fellowships in different specialty areas). We shall continue to pursue the approval of DPT at the NUC through visits and high level delegation to the commission together with aggressive publicity in the media. There shall be remarkable success within 1-2 years by the grace of God. Strong support shall be given to the Physiotherapy programmes in UNIBEN, University of Ilorin and upcoming university physiotherapy programmes. This will be inform of sharing of human and material resources, staff development and joint research with the old institutions, The Northern region will be supported to have postgraduate physiotherapy programmes to provide opportunity for our colleagues in the region to continue their career in physiotherapy without travelling long distance down to the south or the east. CPD Programmes: In order to consolidate, revalidate, and expand our current practice, there will be regular workshops organize by the NSP to update members’ knowledge on current trends in Physiotherapy at affordable cost. Areas such as management, leadership and establishment matters, medical imaging, pharmacology, health promotion, etc will be given priority to bridge the gap of knowledge in these areas. Our training institutions and hospitals shall be encouraged to share resources together which may be in form of exchange programmes. The objective of this is to help strengthen the area of weakness of our institutions. Educational Resources: We shall subscribe to databases for our members to have access to free articles reprints in order to help them in their research work and to provide evidence-based practice resources during patient care. Information on grants, scholarships and fellowship opportunities shall be published regularly for members to access. NSP shall attract grants to support members who may want to conduct clinical trials and multi-centre studies that will be beneficial to physiotherapy profession if the proposal of such members have merit. Advocacy for chronic disease prevention using physical activities and built environment shall be integrated into our programme. Journal of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy shall be sustained and improved upon and the publication shall be regular. Physionews shall continue to be published and quarterly electronic Newsletter shall also be introduced. 4 Mentorship: There is a need to groom the young PTs in order to make them grow to become leaders of integrity and excellence in the society. The NSP shall appoint 2 Senior PTs from the academia and clinics to oversee the activities of NAPS as coordinators. The President and secretary of NAPS including the presidents of each institution shall be given concessional registration at NSP AGMs. There will students’ forum where they can meet and interact with the icons of the profession. 5. Honours and Awards: We shall continue to give recognition and rewards to the distinguished and deserved members who excel in their fields in both academics and clinics. We shall solicit for sponsorships from individuals, organizations and corporate bodies to sponsor awards in their names. The money shall be in fixed accounts and the interest would be used to service the awards. NSP shall sponsor at least 5 PTs to the annual conferences based on some conditions and terms. The best 3 abstract papers presented in NSP conference shall be awarded and the best NSP chapter award shall be sustained. These gestures shall serve as inspiration for better performance of our members. 6. Policies/Advocacy: We shall set up modalities in place to rank our hospitals based on the quality of physiotherapy services viz: staff-patient (number of beds) ratio, infra-structure, space, equipment, professional development etc based on MRTB regulations. The ranking shall be published annually. This will serve as quality assurance to appraise each institution to allow for improvement by the hospital managements. The report could serve as an evidence to justify the increase in staff strength, expansion of the departments, equipments acquisition etc (This will not in any way take over the accreditation exercise by the MRTB which in most time may take 5 years). Quality control is the process by which outcomes of the quality processes are assessed to determine if they are of the prescribed standard. Quality Assurance Committee shall be constituted to perform the above mentioned functions. We shall review NSP code of ethics and formulate policies that will be useful to Physiotherapy practice. 7. Career Progression: Based on the institutional policy and civil service rule, our colleagues working in various health institutions will be supported to rise to the peak of their career and also take charge of their lawful duties without any external interference. Rufus A Adedoyin, BMR, PT, M.Sc, PhD, IFAARC
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 09:18:06 +0000
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