Expert advocates training for medical graduates

Expert advocates training for medical graduates
By Olasunkanmi Onifade
Training
Abuja, April 12, 2018 (NAN) Dr Biodun Ogungbo, Consultant Neurological Surgeon, Abuja, has called on executive intervention and legislative action for training of medical graduates with attractive terms and conditions of service.
Ogungbo made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that government should develop a package for measure for local training that may dissuade emigration.
“Right now, many young doctors are frustrated and disillusioned. Medicine has failed to deliver or meet their expectations.
“Poor job prospects, poor salaries, poor conditions of work and service, poor remunerations and poor training facilities are all they have.
“We need to stop destroying our young doctors and pull them out from under the bus; the future of healthcare in Nigeria is in the private sector,” he said.
Ogungbo said there was need to encourage entrepreneurship that delivers more hospitals in more corners of the country, saying it can be achieved through single digit loans and removal of heavy handed bureaucracy.
He also called for the need to create a soft landing for medical doctors in the diaspora, saying government must encourage them to return through collaborations with the teaching hospitals and public private partnerships.
“We believe that Nigeria may be able to have a good chance to leap from a position where the changes its young doctors and medical tourists are looking for overseas can be mostly found in Nigeria; with huge savings for individuals and the economy.
“We believe the best time to take action and achieve the desired results is now as some newly qualified doctors are leaving to Europe, North America, Middle East and elsewhere to seek specialist training or earn a living.
“Our medical schools exist to train doctors to work in Nigerian hospitals. If that is agreed, then it should also follow that it is uneconomic for Nigeria to lose elite, trained and highly skilled doctors to other, mostly richer countries,’’ Ogungbo said.
He said the reduced number of medical doctors and other specialists was interfering with the delivery of quality of care in the country, saying it is fuelling medical tourism.
The expert said lack of doctors in numbers and lack of well-trained specialists in particular, impacts on care and promotes poor outcomes.
“We do not have enough doctors in Nigeria. We are also losing the ones we have managed to produce and train, to other countries, to the detriment of our healthcare system.
“Our patients, including government officials and their families, are leaving the country for medical tourism because our healthcare system is in distress.
“Some patients are even travelling abroad to see Nigerian doctors who had left the country,’’ he said.
Ogungbo however recommended for urgent action by the government to retain the majority of our doctors within the country in order to promote the health of all citizens.
“The common good is for many of our doctors to remain in Nigeria to service its healthcare needs, accessibility and affordability of good quality healthcare in Nigeria,’’ he said. (NAN)
OEO/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola