The Lagos State Government will soon establish a medical university to boost the training of health professionals and address the problem of brain drain in the health sector.
Gov. Babajide Sanwo-olu disclosed this at the inauguration of the Femi Gbajabiamila General Hospital on Tuesday in Surulere, Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 80-bed facility was facilitated by the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila.
The governor said the university would be established before the end of 2024, in collaboration with the Federal Government.
“This is an opportunity to announce another bold initiative that we will be pursuing in this year.
“This is strategic for us. This is a strategic intervention for us. Why are we setting up a health or a medical university? It is to solve two problems.
“We found out that working with the Federal Ministry of Health, we need to scale up very aggressively all of our training and all of the youths to be trained in everything within our health space.
“We cannot sit back and fold our arms as a government that cannot intervene. And so we will, as a state, hoping that other states will take this initiative and set up similar universities to be able to scale up and have between 1,000 and 1,500 doctors graduating every year.
“And this will also stem, in our view, the trend of medical personnel leaving our country.
“We are not going to stop at ensuring that we provide the best facilities to be able to retain our best talents here,” he said.
