A recent study looked at how nuclear medicine departments are running in several South African academic hospitals. Researchers examined seven hospitals to see how they manage their staff, equipment, and patient numbers.
The findings show that while all hospitals had nuclear medicine physicians and medical physicists, there was a major gap in other areas. Only two of the seven hospitals had radiopharmacists on staff. While most hospitals had access to advanced SPECT-CT cameras, one hospital had to refer its PET-CT patients to a private facility.
On average, these hospitals saw about 7,040 nuclear medicine patients each in 2022. The study highlights that while the necessary doctors and physicists are present, the lack of radiopharmacists is a notable issue.
Because this was a descriptive study of a small number of hospitals, these results may not represent all medical facilities. The researchers suggest that creating new standards for Africa, such as centralized production of radiopharmaceuticals, could help improve patient services and support future research.