Nigeria has capacity to export medical doctors, nurses – Okowa

Nigeria has the capacity to export medical officers to needy nations if available potentials are adequately harnessed and planned.

Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State stated this while inaugurating the Collegiate System in the State’s Schools of Nursing at the College of Nursing, Agbor, Ika South Local Government Area of the state.

He said that rather than contemplate restricting medical practitioners from moving out of the country, more of them could be trained, and from the pool, enough would remain in the country, while some could be exported to needy nations.

“Nigeria can leverage the massive demand for medical professionals trained in the country by signing bilateral agreements with foreign nations to train and export more of the professionals to those countries,” he said.

He frowned at the prevailing development where medical professionals no longer empathised with humanity, saying that it had become commonplace and unethical.

Okowa urged all medical workers to adhere to the ethics of their professions by ensuring that they put in their best to render assistance to patients by showing them love at all times.

He said that Nigeria had the challenge of nurses, midwives and doctors exiting the country, and pointed out that the situation had begun to trouble the healthcare system in the country.

“I think that as a nation, if we know where our strength lies, we can do things that can enable us to improve on where our strength lies.

“There is nothing wrong if there is a planned programme by Nigeria to train many more nurses than we need, and we enter into a bilateral relationship with other countries to export some of our nurses, midwives and doctors.

“I am not one of those that will come out to say that we are trying to make laws to stop or restrict the movement of medical personnel out of the country,” he said.