The Ondo State Government
has announced its plan to establish a Medical Science University to enable it
institutionalize the successes it has been able to achieve in the health sector
and also halt the brain –drain being experienced in the sector.
The state’s Commissioner
for Information, Hon. Kayode Akinmade made this known while speaking with
newsmen in Ondo at the weekend during a working tour of
the Ondo Medical
Village.
He mentioned that the
proposed University seeks to build on the enviable platforms already created by
government to ensure the sustainability of qualitative health care system
development and to halt the brain drain being experienced in the health
sector through the production of top quality health professionals to
effectively man the various hospitals in the state.
Informing that Ondo state
is the only state in the southwestern region without a Teaching Hospital,
the establishment of a medical Science University, Akinmade
said also became imperative especially as the obvious brain drain of health
workers seeking to explore further career opportunities within and outside the
country, does not augur well for the sustainability of recent gains of
the government in the health sector, as well as the eventual scale up and
replication of the Mother and Child hospitals across the state.
The establishment is also
expected to make for the provision of an institutional base for
acquisition of academic, professional and technological knowledge needed for
manpower development in technology, basic applied sciences.
The Commissioner explained
that at the inception of the administration, basic health indices of the state
were considered the worst in the entire south west because of the relatively
high rate of maternal mortality and morbidity.
To reverse the ugly trend,
he said, the administration immediately responded by initiating unprecedented
bold and ambitious health care development programmes aimed at reducing the
burden of diseases and mortality among the people of the state, hence the
Abiye Safe Motherhood initiative which he said seeks to provide free access to
quality health care services for pregnant women and under-5 Children, to the
globally acclaimed Mother and Child Hospitals.
He mentioned that the
government has established the first of its kind Trauma centre and Surgical
centre to handle critical trauma and burns cases, thus, submitting that government
has invested massively in wholesale capacity development of the health sector
and has continued to facilitate sustained recruitment of key
personnel such as Doctors, Nurses among others, to bridge the critical human
resources gaps at the hospitals and at basic health centres across the state.
From only five consultants
in the entire health care delivery system at the inception of the Governor
Olusegun Mimiko led government, he said the state now has more than 72
consultants in various fields of medicine.
Despite efforts
towards improving healthcare delivery however, he said government is
still confronted with many challenges, chief among them, the brain drain of
health workers which he said the establishment of a Medical Science
University will prevent .
The
University, among others is also expected to provide sound scientific,
technological and professional training to address identified health need and
problems, solve them within the context of community and national needs and
sustainable development. A bill seeking the establishment of the University, he
mentioned, has been forwarded to the state House of Assembly for
consideration.
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