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Nigeria needs no fewer
than 237,000 medical doctors to meet World Health Organization (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 organized 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.’’
NAN report continues:
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
said that globally, a doctor is the head of the medical team, adding that it
did not mean that others were subjugates as they all must work together.
Mr.
Ogunsola advocated a joint training of doctors and other medical workers at
medical schools so that they learn how to work together from the onset.
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.
Earlier,
Prof. Julius Okojie, NUC’s Executive Secretary, said the essence of the
workshop was to revisit the Bench Mark Academic Standard (BMAS) for medicine.
He
said the workshop aimed at fashioning out ways to improve the skills and
competences of medical doctors by improving the teaching and practice of
medicine.
The
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 25 colleges of medicine
were represented at the workshop.
(NAN)
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