Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has called on health institutions in Nigeria to adopt modern trends in medicine to check the brain drain in the health sector.
The governor made the call when the Ministerial Monitoring Committee of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) High-Impact Intervention in Medical Sciences visited him on Friday in Yenagoa.
Diri emphasised the need for Nigeria to adopt modern trends in medicine, such as biomedical engineering and emergency medicine, to improve healthcare delivery.
He noted that the country’s medical practice was still traditional and that adopting new trends would dissuade many highly qualified medical professionals from leaving the country.
The governor expressed gratitude to the Minister of Education and the Executive Secretary of TETFUND for their intervention project at the Bayelsa Medical University (BMU).
He assured that his administration would continue to inject more resources into the health sector to improve the living standards of the people.
The leader of the ministerial monitoring team, Professor Saad Ahmed, explained that the special high-impact project for the revitalisation of medical schools was initiated by the Federal Government to address the steady migration of health workers out of the country.
He noted that one of the strategies to stem the brain drain in the health sector was to increase the production of the needed manpower.
Ahmed disclosed that funds had been allocated to 18 medical schools across the country to provide infrastructure and equipment with a special focus on medicine, dentistry, nursing sciences, and pharmacy.
He said the goal is to improve the quality of medical education and reduce the brain drain in the health sector.
