According to Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, the Federal Government intends to send selected medical professionals overseas for specialty-specific training in order to combat medical tourism and advance research.
Alausa stated that the idea was being worked on by the National Postgraduate Medical College in Ijanikin, Lagos State, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health.
The state minister of health and social welfare stated this in his speech at the investiture of Dr. Peter Ebeigbe as the 23rd President of the National Postgraduate Medical College, Ijanikin, on Friday in Lagos.
Ebeigbe, a fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was appointed on December 1, 2023, at the 131st statutory meeting of the college’s governing board. He will succeed Dr. Akinsanya Osibogun, the president-elect, and serve in that capacity for the next two years.
Alausa remarked during his statement at the ceremony that the ministry was creating new curricula to address the issues facing the health sector.
He said, “I am to announce that the college, in collaboration with the ministry, is establishing training in many other sub-specialties to be able to treat Nigerians, reduce medical tourism, and enhance research.
“The new curriculum being developed includes interventional cardiology in the faculty of internal medicine and cardiac electrophysiology in the faculty of internal medicine.
“This is extremely important as a lot of people in our country now have pacemakers and automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators; interventional radiology in the faculty of radiology; pain medicine in the faculty of anesthesia; critical care medicine in the faculty of anesthesia; hospice and palliative medicine in the faculty of family medicine; and robotic surgery in the faculty of surgery.
“The FMOH is putting mechanisms in place to fund this training abroad for selected candidates who will be bonded. Surgical oncology in the faculty of surgery; and transplant surgery in the faculty of surgery.
“This super specialty training in solid organ transplant will focus on kidney, liver, lung, and heart transplants for now.”
In his speech, Ebeigbe bemoaned the declining salaries of medical consultants and instructors in comparison to those in the Middle East.
He called for immediate economic involvement and pointed out that the country’s medical experts were primarily migrating abroad for financial reasons.
Ebeigbe said, “One of my teachers who travelled to the Middle East and came back after many years explained things to me, stating that a Nigerian medical professor’s annual earnings gradually dwindled until they were less than the equivalent of $700.
“It was an insightful ‘economic’ intervention by the Federal Government for the enactment of the Medical Salary Scale, which resulted in better pay for doctors, that put an end to the medical brain drain.
“The root cause of brain drain is economic, and economic intervention is currently needed to stem the worsening cascade and prevent a collapse of the health system.
“As a person who relates closely and daily with resident doctors and trainers, I must inform the honorable Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare about the severity of the situation.”
