Introduction & Background

 

Historically, the current School of radiography was first established in 1963 at Menelik II Hospital along with others such as laboratory, pharmacy & health assistants’ training programmes- collectively known as “Medical Auxiliary Training School (MATS).  In 1974, the school of radiography was separately transferred to Tikur Anbessa Hospital with out its allocated budget & other resource.  Since then, this school had not been heeded any serious attention in spite of the fact that it was the only supply of radiographers for the entire nation. 

In its nearly 40 years of existence, the school has barely graduated around 350 diploma graduates!!  That is to say that every year for last 40, years it had been supplying 8 graduates per year! It is really needless to say that the field had long gone dead; had it not been to the ingenious feat of the few professionals in the school.  It is sad to say that because the health care providers did not pay heed to it, unlike the other health professions, which enjoyed expansion & development as result of the attention, they were given.  Many of the graduates abandoned their practice and shifted to other walks of life all together; there was no parallel growth in radiography when other mid-level health professions were upgraded to degree programmes irrespective of the fact that radiography is experiencing giant leaps along with the ever advancing medical imaging technology which demands it consummately.

            The long and short of it therefore is;

a)                     Radiography training in Ethiopia has not changed much since its inception 40 years ago, & therefore, it needs to catch up with the times.

b)                    Professionals in the field have to be given opportunities that their counterparts in the other health specialties have enjoyed with respect to career structure development.

c)                     The diploma programme curriculum of radiology can no longer cover the enormous & vast advances of medical imaging technology in modern radiography unless it is upgraded to B.Sc. level.

d)                    Radiography like other health professions should be able to meet the ever-increasing demand from both the public & private health service sectors for competent, highly skilled professionals well versed in the state-of-the-art imaging technologies.