The federal government has put plans in place to increase admittance to medical and dental schools, boosting the population of medical and dental professionals from 5,000 to 10,000 by the next academic year.
This was revealed by Dr Tunji Alausa, Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, on Wednesday during the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria’s induction ceremony for foreign-trained medical and dental graduates in Abuja.
Alausa believes that making the health-care environment more appealing will inhibit the exodus of licenced doctors and other health professionals to more developed countries.
According to him, the just over 3,000 doctors produced annually in Nigeria remain grossly inadequate, hence, the need to double the rate of production of health workers.
“Equally, we shall expand these opportunities to all other health professionals like pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, community health extension workers, radiographers, and others. Although, this will be in phases. We shall create room to produce more and excess because globally, there’s a shortage of health manpower, which has been estimated at a shortage of 18 million people,” he stated.
Alausa said his ministry would continue to advocate more funding for the health sector and increase the value chain to attract more international grants and funding.