Lagos to Establish Medical University – Health Commissioner
The Lagos state government says it plans to establish a medical university before the end of the year 2024.
The Commissioner for health Processor Akin Abayomi disclosed the plan while delivering a keynote speech at a conference in Ibadan
Abayomi explained that the proposed medical was envisioned to undertake mass production of medical professionals to attain brain gain and address the shortage of personnel in the health sector occasioned by the exodus of doctors and nurses through japa syndrome.
He noted that the initiative which he tagged ‘Lagos Brain Gain Strategy’ was to turn around the negative effect of brain drain to brain gain, affirming that it’s impossible to stop the relocation trend of medical professionals from the country.
The Commissioner stated that the Nigerian universities offering medicine as a course produced less than the required number of doctors and health professionals, hence the need for the specialised medical university to mass produce these healthcare givers and attain medical tourism to boost medical care system and the economy
We decided that enough is enough, we are producing a hundred medical graduates a year in Lagos state university teaching hospital and there’s a deficit of 30,000 Doctors in Lagos, at that rate, it will take us 300 years to meet up that figure.
So what we do is to sept up a system that will enable us to produce 1000 doctors , 1000 Nurses, 1000 Allied professionals, 1000 pharmacists and 1000 scientists yearly in the next five years.”
He hinted that the main campus of the university would be sited in Epe while students would undergo practical training at the multi teaching hospital system tagged “IBILE Campuses” comprising general hospitals in Badagry, Lasucom Ikeja, Lagos Island, Federal and Military hospitals, and Ikorodu
