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From Isaac Job, Uyo
Akwa Ibom state chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has appealed to Akwa Ibom state government to establish 7 medical schools to tackle challenges of lack of doctors in public hospitals.
Chairman of NBA Professor Aniekan Peter raised the concern while briefing Journalists as part of activities marking the association’s ongoing Annual General Meeting/ Scientific (AGM) Conference in Uyo
Peters who applauded the state governor Pastor Umo Eno for special health reforms in the state observed if the state could float more medical institutions , it would provide training grounds for medical doctors and other health workers for the state.
Peter whose tenure will elapsed after the AGM noted that out of 400 doctors needed in the state employment portal only 50 were engaged adding that inadequate health professionals will pose a serious threat to recent government reforms in the health sector .
He lamented that the state is not meeting it employment quota for medical workers over the years, noting that something has to be done to urgently address the shortfall
“If there is vacancies for 100,000 teachers in the state, I’m sure you will find them immediately, but recently the State governor,Umo Eno approved employment for 400 doctors and we couldn’t get them. It means that there’s something wrong somewhere.
“We were looking for 700 nurses in the first time and we couldn’t get until we relax some of the criteria before we were able to get less than the required number
“So it’s time as a people to begin to refocus and that’s why our AGM is all about: Refocusing our attention for the future of health care for Akwa Ibom,” chairman said.
According to him, the time has come for the state government to refocus its priorities and see medical education as an empowerment and not a course.
While appreciating the governor for the approval of the Akwa Ibom State University to run a medical school, professor Peter said that the gesture is not enough compared with other states of the federation like Delta that already had four training institutions.
“We appreciate the governor for the approval granted to the Akwa Ibom State University to start doing medicine and other medical courses. But for Akwa Ibom State that is one over four, it’s still a failure, just 25 per cent. So we thank the governor for opening the first medical school in the state,other states like Delta already had four
“Medicine is no more a course, it’s an empowerment and any state or country that doesn’t recognize this will not get it right. If Akwa Ibom wants to be one of the States to be reckoned with, we must see medical education as an empowerment, we must have at least seven medical schools in this state.
“So that any of our children that want to read medicine or surgery can have admission and the number that want to be nurses, physiotherapists will not be a problem and by God’s grace we can do it.”
The chairman said the State already had structures or facilities that could be converted to training institutions across the state.
“We have our general hospital at Ikot Ekpene that can be a focus of a university, we have our general hospital at Eket, that can be another focus of another university. We can even train them in different medical centres,we have the Ibom Specialty hospital that can stand alone as a university,” he said.
