The Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said on Tuesday that his government would set up a medical university to strengthen the state’s medical infrastructure and counter the exodus of doctors and other medical personnel abroad.
Sanwo-Olu said the planned medical university would graduate about 1,500 doctors annually, urging other states to emulate Lagos.
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The governor disclosed this at the unveiling of the Femi Gbajabiamila General Hospital located on Iyun Road, Surulere.
He said, “The Lagos State will be setting up, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Universities Commission, another university that will be called Lagos State Medical University, before the end of this year. This is a strategic intervention moment for us.
“Why are we setting up a health or medical university? This is to solve two problems: We found out, working with the Federal Ministry of Health, that we need to scale up very aggressively all of our training and the youth that require to be trained in everything within our health space.
“We cannot sit back and fold our arms like a government that cannot intervene, and so we will, as a state that is leading the pack, and we hope that other states will take the initiative to set up this university to be able to scale and have 1,000 to 1,500 doctors being graduated on a year-on-year basis, and will also, in our view, stem the risk of our medical personnel leaving our country.
“We are going to ensure that we provide the best facilities to be able to retain our best talents here.”
Sanwo-OLu said the intervention became necessary following the advice by the federal authorities that states needed to scale up the number of medical personnel being produced to bridge the gap of the shortage of medical health practitioners due to japa.
He commended the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu and the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, for upgrading the popular Femi Gbajabiamila Clinic to an ultramodern multi-floor 80-bed hospital.
Other projects unveiled by the governor on Tuesday included: the upgraded and dualised Babs Animashaun Road in Surulere from a two-lane road to a four-lane dual carriage road; the Femi Gbajabiamila Conference Centre located on the campus of the Lagos State University, Ojo; and the Sam Shonibare Community Centre, comprising a youth centre, an auditorium, a football pitch, a lawn tennis court, and a basketball court, all facilitated and donated by the President’s Chief of Staff, Gbajabiamila.