Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa has urged health institutions in Nigeria to adopt modern trends in medicine to check brain drain in the health sector.

He said this on Friday, when the Ministerial Monitoring Committee of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) High+Impact Intervention in Medical Sciences visited him in Yenagoa.

Mr Diri said the adoption of biomedical engineering and emergency medicine was necessary because the subsisting medical practice in Nigeria was still traditional.

The governor, represented by Deputy Governor Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, stated that Nigeria could achieve better healthcare delivery with the right political will and commitment from all relevant stakeholders.

Mr Diri noted that integrating biomedical engineering and emergency medicine into medical institutions, as well as improving medical infrastructure, would dissuade many highly qualified medical professionals from leaving the country.

The governor said his administration would not relent in injecting more resources into the two sectors to improve the living standards of the people.

He expressed gratitude to the Minister of Education and the executive secretary of the TETFUND for their intervention project at the Bayelsa Medical University (BMU).

He said, “We are quite excited, and we extend our appreciation and gratitude to the Minister of Education and the executive secretary of the TETFUND for looking towards our direction.

“We have been looking for partnerships such as this to enable us to do better. Again, I think we should start looking at modern trends in medicine because Nigeria is still very traditional in medical practice.”

According to him, the nation needed to take a closer look at emerging medical fields, such as biomedical engineering.

Speaking earlier, the leader of the ministerial monitoring team, Saad Ahmed, stated that the special high-impact project for the revitalisation of medical schools was initiated by the federal government.

According to him, this is part of efforts to address the steady migration of health workers out of the country.

Mr Ahmed explained that one of the strategies to stem the brain drain in the health sector was to increase the production of the needed manpower.

He added that funds had been allocated to 18 medical schools nationwide for this purpose.

He explained that the funds were meant to provide infrastructure and equipment, with special focus on medicine, dentistry, nursing sciences, and pharmacy. 

(NAN)