The Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has stated that more medical students are needed to combat the effects of brain drain.
In order to address the low doctor-to-patient ratio, Dr. Victor Makanjuola, President of MDCAN, stated that if medical student enrollment were to rise, there might be more doctors available.
He bemoaned the fact that only 30% of the 4,000 doctors who graduate from medical schools each year still live in the country as a result of the brain drain of physicians.
He said that raising the number of medical students in the nation would raise the number of doctors living there during an education conference held in Abuja on Wednesday.
He suggested that Nigeria needs to maintain good medical education in the country and maintaining good service delivery to the people, saying that it could be done if the country increases the number of medical doctors that it is producing.
According to him, “We retain just 30 to 35 per cent of those we train on an annual basis. If we are retaining 30 percent of about 4,000 produced annually, we are going to go into deeper crises. What we are looking at is if we can find some mechanism for increasing the number to 12,000 or 8,000 because if we retain 30 percent of this number, it is better than that of 4,000. With this, we can support the system, not optimally but keep the system going.”
He advised the federal government to increase medical schools by using different methods of teaching as the country is not having adequate staff strength to man the schools.
He opined that to stop the brain drain of medical doctors, the government needs to ensure access to basic amenities and security, saying that at a point, doctors became targets of kidnappers and the government should increase the remuneration of the workers and invest in their training.
