From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
University of Abuja (UniAbuja) has entered into partnership with Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja for the purposes of providing improved practical training opportunities for the health workforce.
The partnership was announced in Abuja, at weekend, when the Acting Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Manko Lar, alongside other management staff of the school, paid a courtesy visit to the Chief Executive Officer of the Nisa Premier Hospital, Dr. Ibrahim Wada.
She said the visit also serves as a follow-up to Dr. Wada’s appointment as a visiting lecturer to the school, and other arrangements for the exchange of ideas and expertise between the university and the renowned health care facility.
Prof. Lar told journalists that she took a tour of the facility and was amazed with she saw in terms of equipments and manpower. “I saw a state-of-the-art equipment that could facilitated accurate measurement of diagnostic material that would enable the doctors’ work and prescriptions to also be accurate, therefore fulfilling the aspirations and desires of the patients and the expectation of the people.
“This is great for Nigeria. Nisa Premier Hospital is providing leadership in medical and biomedical research in Nigeria and beyond because other countries in Africa send their health workforce to this facility for advanced training in different areas of medicine.
“I am very optimistic that our students would benefit from the state-of-the-art medical
facilities that are here as well as experienced manpower like Dr. Wada and Co. It’s going to upgrade our researchers, and I can assure you that in future students, our university will serve Africa because our students would be attracted from various parts of the country, Africa and the world in general, because we have potentials for our students to come from other countries, the European countries as well.
“Base on what I saw her, our students would be properly trained on in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research, among others, because Nisa Premier Hospital has the facilities that support students to do advanced research in several areas like microbiology, which is my own discipline, and immunology, and in other sides of public health. In doing this, we give hope to many families with challenges of infertility to have their own children.”
In his remarks, Dr. Wada appreciated the partnership between the university and the hospital, expressing optimism that it would herald bigger opportunities for the training health workforce in Nigeria.
He informed the university management of several plans of the hospital geared towards expanding medical research and services to health-seeking Nigerians, and foreigners too.
He assured the UniAbuja Acting VC that the hospital is ever ready to strengthen partnership so that more training and research opportunities would be provided for the health workforce.