By Kemi Akintokun
Lagos – Prof. Afolabi Leshi, Provost, College of Medicine, University of Lagos (UNILAG), on Thursday urged government to provide an enabling environment for health professionals in the country to work.
Leshi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that a conducive environment was necessary so as to reduce brain drain in the health sector.
He said that brain drain was a multifactorial problem and a major challenge facing the Nigerian health system which could still be addressed.
“The issue of brain drain in the health sector is a major one and there are many factors responsible for it.
“It is a natural thing all over the world for people to move from one place to another to improve their competence and skills in the field.
“The challenge about going to other countries to acquire knowledge and returning to give to the society centres on government providing an enabling environment to encourage young doctors to stay back.
“If adequate welfare is put in place and our young doctors have the opportunity to train adequately, it will reduce the problem of brain drain,” he said.
The provost also said that the various health facilities across the country should be improved to meet the needed capacity for training more doctors.
“We complain of not producing enough doctors but the answer is not just increasing the capacity to train our doctors alone.
“The facilities have to match the increase and that is why I said the problem of brain drain is multi-factorial,” he said.
Leshi said that the college would not relent in its effort of training globally competitive doctors.
“Here at UNILAG’s College of Medicine, we always train our students to be globally competitive and that is why we give them excellent training,” he said.
(NAN)
