The Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi, has raised concerns over the acute shortage of trained biomedical engineers in Nigerian hospitals, warning that inadequate technical capacity is undermining the maintenance of critical medical equipment.
Speaking on Thursday at the 4th National Oxygen Coordination Meeting in Abuja — an event organised by the Federal Government in collaboration with development partners — Ajetunmobi emphasised that many health facilities operate without properly trained biomedical engineers.
“In some of our hospitals, we don’t even have trained biomedical engineers,” she said. “Even though we have people occupying the space, they still need to be trained regularly. They are the ones taking care of the machines working at the back end.”
According to available estimates, Nigeria has fewer than 0.05 biomedical engineers per 10,000 people — translating to roughly 280 professionals nationwide. The shortfall has significant implications for healthcare delivery, as biomedical engineers are responsible for designing, installing, maintaining and troubleshooting medical equipment, including oxygen plants and life-saving machines.
Ajetunmobi stressed the need for continuous capacity building to ensure engineers are equipped to manage complex hospital technologies effectively. “We need that capacity building for biomedical engineers to be able to know what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” she added.
Highlighting challenges specific to oxygen infrastructure, the commissioner cited Oyo State’s solar-powered oxygen plant, describing it as customised and sometimes difficult to service due to limited access to spare parts.
“Many a time when the maintenance agency comes to service it, it becomes an issue to get spare parts. We need a regular supply of spare parts because if we have them, whatever goes wrong can be fixed promptly,” she explained.
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The issue of sustainable oxygen supply has remained a key focus of health authorities, particularly following lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, when oxygen shortages exposed gaps in infrastructure across the country.
Also addressing participants at the meeting, the Secretary of the National Oxygen Desk at the Federal Ministry of Health, Eno Edem, urged state governments to implement lessons learned on oxygen sustainability and invest in training healthcare workers.
She described frontline health workers as “the main actors” in ensuring the long-term sustainability of medical oxygen systems.
While the Federal Government has established specialised biomedical engineering departments in universities, launched training programmes and partnered with international institutions to strengthen standards, experts say sustained investment and policy consistency will be crucial to bridging the gap.
For patients relying on ventilators, oxygen concentrators and diagnostic machines, the conversation goes beyond policy — it is about ensuring that critical equipment functions reliably when lives depend on it.