The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Akwa Ibom State chapter, has raised concerns over the shortage of doctors and other healthcare professionals in the state, calling for the establishment of more medical training institutions to address the growing workforce gap.
The association’s chairman, Professor Aniekan Peter, made the call in Uyo during the NMA’s Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference, where he stressed the need for urgent action to strengthen the state’s healthcare system.
Peter urged the Akwa Ibom State Government to deliberately establish at least seven medical schools, arguing that medical education should be viewed as an investment rather than a burden.
He expressed concern that the state has struggled to attract enough healthcare workers despite available vacancies.
“If there are vacancies for 100,000 teachers in the state, I’m sure you will find them immediately, but recently the state governor approved employment for 400 doctors and we couldn’t get them. It means that there’s something wrong somewhere,” Peter said.
He added that the shortage also affected other health professionals, noting that the state had difficulties recruiting nurses.
“We were looking for 700 nurses for the first time, and we couldn’t get them until we relaxed some of the criteria before we were able to get the number,” he said.
The NMA chairman commended Governor Umo Eno for approving the establishment of a medical school at Akwa Ibom State University but described the move as only a first step.
“We appreciate the governor for the approval granted to the Akwa Ibom State University to start doing medicine and other medical courses.
”But for Akwa Ibom State, that is one over four; it’s still a failure, just 25 per cent,” he said.
According to Peter, expanding medical education opportunities would help produce more doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other specialists needed to improve healthcare delivery.
“Medicine is no more a course; it’s an empowerment, and any state or country that doesn’t recognise this will not get it right,” he said.
He suggested that existing health facilities, including general hospitals in Ikot Ekpene and Eket as well as the Ibom Specialist Hospital, could be upgraded into medical training institutions.
“We have our general hospital at Ikot Ekpene that can be a focus of a university; we have our general hospital at Eket that can be another focus of another university.
”We have the Ibom Specialist Hospital that can stand alone as a university,” Peter added.
