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LAGOS, Nigeria - The Lagos State Government is grappling with a significant shortage of medical practitioners, with a deficit of 66,000 healthcare professionals, threatening to undermine the state’s effort to deliver quality healthcare services to its growing population.
With only 7,000 doctors on the ground, far short of the 40,000 target set to deliver quality healthcare, the government faces a daunting challenge in providing adequate medical services to its residents, calling for swift and strategic intervention to mitigate the potentially far-reaching consequences.
Following a situation analysis, the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led administration, with the efforts of the Ministry of Health, has established the University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMH), a standalone medical institute to address the shortage of medical practitioners.
Building on the UMH mandate to tackle the state’s healthcare workforce gap, Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi revealed that the institute plans to boost medical student intake to 2,500 within five years.
“We have 7,000 doctors in Lagos, our target is 40,000. Lagos needs 33,000 more doctors and equal number of nurses. Therefore, we are in shortage of 33,000 doctors in Lagos, This is the situation analysis that justified the executive council to come to a deliberate decision to to establish a standalone university of Medical health science (UMH), there’s an urgent demand to increase health practitioners”
“We want to increase our intake from 200 by adding another 500 across the district. The next year, we will add another until it completes 2500 intake within 5 years,” Abayomi stated.
According to Abayomi, during the Ministerial Press Briefing marking Sanwo-Olu’s achievements since assuming office two years ago, the 2,500+ practitioner target breaks down to 40% doctors and nurses each, 10% pharmacists, 3% dentists, and 2% physiotherapists.
On the issue of migration of highly skilled practitioners, the commissioner noted that to stem the tide, the government is investing in the healthcare sector by increasing funding, improving working conditions, and providing more training opportunities to develop and retain skilled healthcare professionals.
“To reduce brain drain and increase brain gain, we are introducing flows of funds into the sector through the watching and living conditions of our health professionals, and we are training many more health care professionals. We are engaging with our diaspora association across the world be facilitate the return of Nigerian specialists from the diaspora,” he added.
“We are focusing on improving the living conditions of our health professionals, we are building medical professional quarters in all our new facilities, and we are even going back to our old facilities to construct accommodations for example, there is an ongoing project in LASUTH”
In addition to this, Abayomi highlighted major strides in the health sector under the THEMES+ agenda, including the Construction of General Hospitals and mental institutions, renovation of old General Hospitals as well as the launch of the Lagos Medipark Project, a public-private partnership between the state and IASO Medipark Limited.
Regarding medical industry development, the commissioner disclosed that the government, in partnership with the Federal Government, is currently working on a large-scale health initiative project called the Medical Village.
In this Medical Village, stated Abayomi, researchers across the country will submit their findings to a team of top scientists for further research on developing drugs and vaccines.
Speaking further, he also addressed maternal and infant mortality, highlighting the government’s plans to tackle this pressing issue across the state.
“430 mothers died in Lagos out of 100,000 mothers trying to give birth to their children. For us in Lagos, this is unacceptable. For that, we have declared zero tolerance on maternal death in the process of childbearing. Our target for over the next 30 years is to bring down the number of deaths from 430 to 37,” the commissioner concluded.
