Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said that the state’s health sector is lacking 30,000 medical doctors to address the population’s medical needs.
The commissioner said that the lack of medical doctors in the state has led to overworked medical officials and a gap in the doctor-to-patient ratio.
On Wednesday, at the 2024 Clean-Air Forum in Lagos, Prof. Akin Abayomi, the Commissioner for Health, revealed that the state faces a significant shortage of 30,000 medical doctors, leading to an overworked healthcare workforce and a strained doctor-to-patient ratio.
He attributed this shortage to brain drain, among other factors. The forum, organized by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), aims to raise awareness about air quality and the harmful effects of pollution on public health.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, spoke at the “Advancing Collaborations and Multi-regional Partnerships for Clean Air Actions in African Cities” forum, organized by the University of Lagos, AirQo, Makerere University, Uganda, and supported by the Lagos State Government.
He emphasized the harmful effects of air pollution on public health and the healthcare sector, and highlighted the state’s efforts to address the issue through inter-agency collaborations and partnerships to mitigate the crisis and promote clean air actions in African cities.
Professor Abayomi emphasized that Lagos State, with its growing population and aspirations to become a smart city, urgently requires a significant influx of medical doctors to meet the escalating healthcare demands and provide quality medical care to its residents.
Lagos annual population growth rate of six to eight per cent comes with huge challenges and the health sector not exception.
“Lagos because of its daily increasing population has a complex tuberculosis index and the state is making a whole lot of impact in this area to mitigate its spread.
“The promotion of air quality and the need to halt environmental pollution in the state is where the collaborative efforts of the agencies are needed.
“As a government, the state will continue to support every effort to sanitise the air in the city in order to reduce rate of air borne, water diseases that bear negative on the health of the residents.”
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, acknowledged that the scarcity of bed spaces in state health centers has been a long-standing concern for the public, and assured that the state government has been proactively addressing this issue to increase capacity and provide much-needed relief to patients.
Professor Abayomi expressed optimism that the ongoing construction of modern healthcare facilities and the establishment of a medical research institution in Lagos State will help bridge the gap in healthcare services within the next 18 months, ultimately providing the public with the high-quality care they deserve.
