The Nigerian Medical Association has stressed to the Federal Government the importance of upholding the quality of medical education as it moves to expand the number of students admitted into medical schools.
Prof. Bala Audu, the President of NMA, emphasized this point during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria at the 24th Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Nigeria Hypertension Society in Lagos.
The Federal Government’s decision to double the enrollment quota for medical, nursing, and other health professional schools from 28,000 to 64,000 within a year has been met with support from NMA.
Audu expressed the association’s backing for the initiative while also urging the government to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to facilitate the effective delivery and transfer of knowledge.
“There is also a need to increase the critical numbers of those who are going to deliver this knowledge in terms of the number of lecturers who, as we all know, are medical professionals.
“This means we have to open up the consultant employment spaces in both our teaching hospitals and our tertiary health institutions, as well as in our medical schools.
“Which implies that the doctors we are training in our residency training programmes to become consultants need to be absorbed so that we don’t lose them to other conditions,” he said.
The president further emphasised that medical lecturers should be paid commensurably as those who decide to remain only in the clinical area, noting that the medical lecturers have a dual responsibility.
“They have the responsibility both as lecturers, as well as clinicians. And this is irrespective of which faculty they are servicing in the medical training programme.
“There is a need for universal applicability,” he noted.
NMA President Audu encouraged states and federal institutions to adopt the Exit Replacement policy, similar to Lagos State, to enhance human resources capacity in the health sector.
He emphasized the need for expansion, highlighting the availability of qualified professionals who can be absorbed into various employment areas within the health structure, including local, state, federal, and private sectors, to improve healthcare delivery.
Audu stressed the importance of boosting human resources to reduce the workload on health workers, citing chronic stress as a leading cause of hypertension.
He also urged state governments to implement the reviewed Consolidated Medical Salary Structure and new minimum wage to enhance healthcare workers’ welfare and service delivery nationwide.
