Nigeria needs no fewer than 237,000 medical doctors to meet World Health
Organisation (WHO) standard, a professor of medicine and chairman,
Association of Colleges of Medicine of Nigeria, Folashade Ogunsola, has
said.
Mrs. Ogunsola disclosed this at the opening of a three-day Capacity
Development Programme for Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery
(MBBS) Academic Staff in Nigerian Universities organised by National
Universities Commission on Monday in Abuja.
According to her, WHO’s ratio for any country to have enough doctors
for its population is 1:600 (one doctor of every 600 persons).
“We will need about 237, 000 medical doctors and we have about 35,000 working in the country today.
“We have trained more than that, many of them have left the country
while many others are in different professions — banking, music and so
on.
“Medicine is about life; it is the duty of the medical schools to produce people with competences; skills to manage patients.
“Assuming no doctor leaves this country after being trained; going by
the number coming from our medical schools every year, it will take us
about 100 years to have the number of doctors we need.’’
Mrs. Ogunsola, who lectures at the College of Medicine, University of
Lagos, said that aside that number, the quality of doctors was crucial.
According to her, medical schools have quotas at present — the number
of students they can admit because they can only train with the
facilities they have.
The professor said that the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria and
NUC were interested in the quality of doctors produced in the country.
“The council makes sure that the people it registers as medical
doctors have been adequately trained; NUC makes sure that universities
churn out the kind of doctors that we need.
“Right now, we have quotas and for that quota to change, we have to
re-think how we are training medical doctors and how we are funding our
medical schools. Medical school is not all about lectures; the minute
they leave, lives are entrusted in their hands. Government really has to
think about how to fund medical schools in the face of dwindling
resources so that they are not left at the vagaries of universities.’’
According to her, to stem the tide of exodus of medical doctors,
there is the need to have a policy on healthcare in order to detach
politics from healthcare.
She also identified lack of job satisfaction as another reason why
doctors exit the profession and called for a review of working
conditions and upgrade of hospitals.
No comments:
Post a Comment