Lagos State has unveiled a strategy to tackle the migration of healthcare professionals by increasing annual admission capacity for health students from 500 to 3,000 over the next five years.

The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, disclosed this on Monday in a post on his X handle, saying the plan would combine expanded local training with healthcare financing reforms to retain skilled professionals and encourage Nigerians working abroad to return.

He said the Lagos State House of Assembly had passed a bill to transform the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) into a standalone University of Medicine and Health Sciences, to be known as LASUMAH.

The bill is awaiting the governor’s assent.

According to Abayomi, the proposed expansion would increase the number of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and medical laboratory scientists trained annually in the state.

As part of the strategy, the state government has converted the former CACOVID COVID-19 isolation centre at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, into a training facility for LASUCOM’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Abayomi said the Lagos State Infrastructure Asset Management Agency (LASIAMA) had handed over the renovated facility to LASUCOM.

The facility has 315 laboratory workstations, 520 lecture hall seats and 169 seminar seats across six departments.

The commissioner said the project was one of three sites identified for immediate transformation following the first phase of a statewide infrastructure audit. The other sites are the Cardio-Renal Centre at Gbagada General Hospital and the main LASUCOM campus.

He added that Lagos was preparing its 30 general hospitals, more than 300 primary healthcare centres and 10 maternal and child centres to serve as clinical training facilities.

The plan includes training hubs, student accommodation and logistics across the state’s five IBILE zones: Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island and Epe.

Abayomi said the state would also pursue demand-side healthcare financing reforms to narrow the gap between local and international healthcare markets, reduce the incentive for health workers to emigrate and strengthen financial protection for vulnerable residents through cross-subsidies.

Nigeria’s healthcare sector has faced persistent workforce shortages, driven partly by the emigration of skilled professionals, historically inadequate training capacity and population growth.