**5. Staff requirements**

6 Gastrointestinal Endoscopy


These minimum requirements are not even available in some of the surgical theatres and intensive care units of hospitals in the developing countries and therefore it will be unrealistic to expect endoscopy facilities to have them. Some teaching hospitals in resourcepoor countries do not offer gastrointestinal endoscopy. In centres where the service is available, there may be only one functional gastroscope and/or one functional colonoscope. Often a lot of accessories are improvised. Again, using Nigeria as example, therapeutic endoscopy is still at its infancy. Majority of the teaching hospitals in the country have no facility for therapeutic endoscopy. One or 2 centres may be able to do band ligation of esophageal varices albeit in an unsustainable fashion. In one of the centres the doctors modified the normal variceal banding technique by cutting size 14 Folley's urethral catheters to size and reloading them on previously used caps, all in an attempt to reduce cost (Ladep et al 2008). Infection control remains a challenge in such ingenuity. It is also common to find non-immersible endoscopes in developing countries with obvious implication for cross-infection. The newer techniques in endoscopy like capsule endoscopy





manufacturer's directions.






*Ancillary equipment* 









*Permanently sited in the endoscopy facility will be the following items:* 



*Rapid access (within 1-2minutes) to the following equipment is also mandatory.* 
