The Buhari administration is considering special funding for the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, to assist in training specialists, the Minister of State for Health, Ekunmankama Nkama, has hinted.

This is especially expedient to arrest the level of brain drain in the medical field, Mr Nkama noted.

The minister made the disclosure at the 16th Annual Scientific Conference and Fellows’ Congress, organised by the Post Graduate Medical College Fellows’ Association, in Lagos on Tuesday. 

He was represented by Dr Adedamola Dada, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Center, Ebute-Meta.

Mr Nkama said that the Federal Ministry of Health sought to collaborate with the college to rapidly deploy simulation equipment and support the proposed regional training centres to strengthen residency training.

“The brain drain phenomenon in the health sector in Nigeria has been noted by the federal government and efforts are already in place to find a lasting solution to the problem.

“The loss of many highly skilled and educated people from the country to the UK, Canada and Australia has become more worrisome to health authorities.

“Scarcity of healthcare workers is the primary challenge in the health sector today,” he said.

Mr Nkama, however, said that some of the possible solutions to reverse the brain drain and increase the retention of medical doctors and dentists included increasing wages.

Others, he said, are; improvement in welfare packages, payment of rural allowance for doctors, equipping health facilities, improvement in public infrastructure, increase in retirement age for doctors and other health professionals.

In response to COVID-19 pandemic, the minister said that the government through the Federal Ministry of Health embarked on building and equipping molecular laboratories in all federal tertiary hospitals.

He noted that the infrastructure would help to enhance the capacity to diagnose  diseases.

(NAN)