The West African College of Physicians (WACP), Nigeria, says while it has adopted artificial intelligence (AI) for medical diagnosis, algorithms cannot replace human empathy in healthcare.

The chairman of WACP, Nigeria, and the college vice president, Benjamin Uzochukwu, said this at a news conference held in Ibadan on Monday.

The news conference is part of the activities to mark the organisation’s 50th annual general and scientific meeting (AGSM) in Ibadan.

Mr Uzochukwu, who also chairs the WACP Nigeria 50th AGSM local organising committee, said the college had prepared specialists to use digital health, telemedicine, health informatics, and AI safely, ethically, and effectively.

He, however, warned that AI could not replace empathy.

“AI is very, very helpful, especially in diagnosis, but in management, the human nature is missing; AI will not tell you ‘Sorry’, for instance. AI is good, but we need to mix it with our human intelligence,” he said.

The chairman also called for urgent strengthening of Nigeria’s health system to address brain drain and improve healthcare delivery.

According to him, brain drain continues to strip the country’s hospitals of experienced specialists.

He said the syndrome could, however, be stopped by ensuring that home facilities were of good quality and that health workers were rightly remunerated.

“If all these are done, the health system will be easily sustained,” he said.

According to him, WACP is supporting the federal government in achieving universal health coverage.

“Once we can achieve universal health coverage, it will embody most of the things that will make the brain drain stop,” he said.

Mr Uzochukwu listed the following areas in the health system that required strengthening: governance, financing, human resources for health, service delivery, health management information system, medicines, and technologies.

“On financing, we must put in money, at least the agreed percentage for health, which is 15 per cent of the budget. For now, it is less than six per cent,” he said.

He also called for the local production of vaccines.

“In those days, vaccines were produced in Yaba and all that. Today, we don’t have any organisation producing vaccines, and we need vaccines for prevention,” he said.

Mr Uzochukwu said the Nigerian chapter of WACP had trained 4,654 Fellows since 2014 across six specialities.

He named the fields as community health, family medicine, internal medicine, laboratory medicine, paediatrics, and psychiatry.

He added that a community medical outreach, targeting at least 500 people, is ongoing in Kasumu Ajia Community, Egbeda Local Government of Oyo State.

According to him, 400 participants will be attending the forthcoming 50th AGSM, themed “Building Bridges, Forging Resilience and Partnership in Health”.

He thanked the Oyo State government, the Federal Ministry of Health and other partners for their support. 

(NAN)