Improving working conditions of doctors will reverse brain drain, says Osibogun

In order to address the current medical brain in the country, the President, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN), Dr. Akinsanya Osibogun, has stressed the need to improve working conditions of doctors.

According to the Nigerian Medical Association, (NMA), it is estimated that 40,000 doctors are practicing in the country out of over 80,000 registered doctors.

In his inaugural address at his investiture as the 22nd College President last week, he said “it costs roughly $1.1million to train a doctor in the United States of America (USA) and that gives us a rough idea of what medical teachers in Nigeria are contributing by producing over 3,000 doctors annually in Nigeria.”

Unfortunately, he said about a third of these doctors are now emigrating annually due to push and pull factors. In order to halt and reverse the obvious crisis, he said, “We need to urgently expand production of more doctors, and improve the work conditions so that we can retain them.”

Speaking further, he said a healthy population is an economic and social asset worth investing on. He added that investing in and partnering with National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria will help produce more specialist to address the nation’s disease burden and provide more medical teachers to help produce more doctors to serve more communities in Nigeria.

He said the college has produced over 7,500 specialists to date and they are working as consultants in Teaching Hospitals, Federal Medical Centers, State General Hospitals, Local Government Health Departments, Private Medical Centre and constitute the bulk of teachers and researchers in the nations medical schools.

According to him, “the products of our Medical Schools are performing excellently well all over the world. One of such products, now working in the USA scored a first by bringing out a foetus, operating on it and returning back the foetus to the mother’s womb.

“The foetus has since been born the second time and is alive and well. Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, the surgeon got his medical degree from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.”

He added that the Fellows of the College and the West African Colleges account for over 95 per cent of all consultants practicing in all government hospitals in Nigeria today.