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| Image source: TrinitronTV |
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.’’
