Akande calls for establishment of more medical varsities  

A former governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, over the weekend, called for the creation of more medical universities to address the dearth of medical personnel in the country.

Akande made the call while speaking with journalists shortly after a facility tour of the Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila-Orangun, Osun State.

The former governor commended the management of the university for what he described as phenomenal growth in the infrastructure on the campus.

Akande said: “For the job done so far, I am highly impressed. I have never seen a university grow at this phenomenal rate in infrastructure all my life.

“I am grateful to the vice-chancellor and the management for their bold vision and accomplishments thus far.

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“When my friends in the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) decided to put the university here, I was very happy, but my impression of a medical science university was a mere hospital. At the beginning, I was always coming here, but today I realize that the university is quite different from the hospital, and I realize that the hospital is a mere laboratory for the university.

“The statisticians will tell you that you need a certain number of doctors for certain numbers of the population, but Nigeria is far below that recommendation and advantage. So, for a medical science university, I would love to see more of them in the country because health is wealth.

“And this is a country that is afflicted with illiteracy and where you find that you have lots of dirty things and sickness. So, I don’t see a university being too many, if it is a purposeful university. But if it is purposeless, merely just for turning out students who will be roaming seeking jobs, I may say that they are too many. But this kind of university we have in Ila, I will say we need more of it.”

On his part, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Wale Lasisi, disclosed that the University Teaching Hospital could take off in 2025.

Lasisi said: “We started in February 2022, and for the first 11 months, we struggled to get a place, but we started academics on December 29, 2022. Construction started on May 30, 2022.

“So, all these structures, including the hospital, were completed within 24 months. The hospital has 350 beds, and it has been equipped pretty well. We have equipment that can cover two theatre facilities. We can take off in 2025. The Federal Ministry of Health took over the teaching hospital and appointed a Chief Medical Director, Prof. Musiliu Owonikoko.

“For the main university, the permanent site is being developed pretty well. We already have a senate building, faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Matriculation Pavilion, Library, Health Centre, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, and our students are in the third year. About 13 programmes are running, and we are happy.”

On why Chief Akande was invited to the facility tour of the university, the VC noted that there were issues of funding for the completed projects.

He said: “There are issues of funding, the main reason why I persuaded Baba to come and look at most of these facilities. Many of these facilities have been built, and some of the vendors have not been mobilized. So that when Baba sees it, he can put power behind what we have been doing and sort it out to move to another.”