Health Ethics And Research Department

Yusuf Olanrewaju Ahmed

BA Public Admin. (1998, ABU)

MPA (2013, UNILORIN) MIHSAN

E-mail: ethical@uithilorin.orgn.ng


The Research Ethics Unit is a unit under the Clinical Affairs Division of the Clinical Affairs and Training (CAT) Directorate of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin. The unit serves as a Secretariat for the hospital Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC), which is shouldered with the responsibility ofreviewing all proposed researches in the hospital as well as affiliate institutions in order to ensure protection and safety of research participants.

The unit exists to perform a wide range of functions which includes:

  • Reviewing all proposed research in the hospital as well as affiliate institutions in order to ensure protection and safety of research participants.
  • Deploying its current assets to enforce compliance in order to ensure that research procedure is in line with what is obtainable in international best practices.
  • Exercising oversight and / monitoring functions on all approved protocols in order to ensure compliance with what the committee has approved
  • Liaising with National health research ethics committee (NHREC) on behalf of the hospital management on matters bordering around bioethics.
  • Safeguarding the standard care of research participants using Evidence based medicine, particularly placebo-controlled randomized trials.
  • Organizing training exercises on bioethics at periodic intervals as a measure to encourage strict adherence to guiding principles within the scope of bioethics.

Advising the hospital management on any other matter bordering on medical ethics that maybe brought before it from time to time.

The Ethical unit Secretariat operates between 8a.m to 4p.m on weekdays.

Predominantly the Head of the unit sits in the committee as a secretary by default and through his exemplary leadership the members of staff at the HREC secretariat have been deployed to carry out functions that are peculiar to the overall impact and efficiency of Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) members and their daily operations.

Such functions includes the following:

  • Co-coordinating the day to day activities within the unit.
  • Signing and Distribution of decision extracts to researchers.
  • Documentation and safe keeping of protocols.
  • Processing all documents brought to the units attention.
  • Facilitating the planning and execution of both annual and periodic training exercise.
  • Safe guarding various researchers’ intellectual properties.

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The current staff strength of the unit stands at 10 members of staff.

The Ethical Research Committee Secretariat is a unit under the Clinical Affairs division of the Clinical affairs and Training (CAT) Directorate of the University of Ilorin teaching hospital. The unit is solely responsible for carrying out both Monitoring and oversight functions within the scope of research in the hospital as well as affiliated institutions. The unit was borne out of the doctrine of necessity due to the overwhelming task assigned to committee members who have to go through the rigorous task of reviewing each protocol, it has however become imperative to engage admin personnel’s who happen to be members of staff within the unit to work in synergy with committee members to ensure that protocols are well documented and traceable, reviewers are assign for proposals among other things within the scope of bioethics.