He expressed joy that ABSUTH had regained its lost accreditation. Also, the governor expressed confidence that the forthcoming residency accreditation will be successful.
Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has appealed to medical graduates of Abia State University Uturu, ABSU, not to emigrate (popular as ‘Japa’) but to stay back home and help the battered health sector.
Governor Otti made the plea at the 30th induction ceremony of 129 medical doctors who graduated from the Abia university.
Meanwhile, three medical students died in an accident while returning from the ceremony. Two more were injured.
Otti said that the renovation of Abia State University Teaching Hospital, ABSUTH, was just the beginning of the massive transformation.
He expressed joy that ABSUTH had regained its lost accreditation. Also, the governor expressed confidence that the forthcoming residency accreditation will be successful.
Otti urged the graduating Abia doctors to have faith in the country and stay back to help tackle the health challenges at home instead.
He recalled that he met enormous decay in the system. He said he had started addressing them.
Furthermore, Governor Otti of Abia reiterated his unwavering determination to change the narrative in the health sector.
He was represented by the Commissioner for Health, Dr Ngozi Okoronkwo, at the induction of the Abia medical graduates.
Emigrating health workers has impacted Nigeria’s health sector negatively. The mass migration abroad, formally called brain drain, is locally known as ‘Japa’.
Vanguard reported the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, as saying 16,000 doctors left Nigeria in five years.
According to Pate, “In the last five years, the country lost about 15,000 to 16,000 doctors to the Japa syndrome. 17,000 had been transferred.
“There are about 300,000 health professionals working in Nigeria today in all cadres. I am talking about doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and others.
“We did an assessment and discovered we have 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors.
“Not all of them are in the country. Some are in the diaspora, especially in the US and UK. But there are 55,000 licenced doctors in the country.”
Also, the Vice Chancellor of Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, Professor Aloysius-Michaels Okolie, last week, bemoaned the shortage of medical personnel across health facilities in Nigeria.
To counter the effect, he said ESUT was collaborating with the Enugu State government to increase the admission quota for the Nursing Sciences Department.
Also, in Nasarwa State, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, raised the alarm over the poor state of the health sector.
PDP raised an alarm over the imminent collapse of health institutions in Nasarawa state, following the ongoing mass resignation of doctors and other health officials as reported by the association of resident doctors.
The party, in a statement signed by the state Chairman, Francis Orogu Tuesday, reacted to the reported cases of Exodus of doctors and other officials in the state health sector.
The party said: “Our attention has been drawn to the exodus of doctors out of the state government-owned health facilities due to lack of facilities, poor welfare and incentives due to the health officers.”
