The Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, has pointed out that increasing capacity to train more medical professionals is the best way to bridge the deficit caused by the rising number of medical doctors who have been moving away from Nigeria to other advanced nations.

Addressing newsmen in Lagos on Sunday, the Deputy Governor, emphasized the importance of increasing the country’s training capacity to fill the jobs that have been left open due to the vacuum created by some emigrating medical professionals, especially medical doctors.

He called on the Federal Government to look for a way to benefit from the countries that Nigerian doctors are moving to.

Hamza said, “Human migration is normal. People would leave, and people would come. But as a country, we can train more doctors.

“I am not against the brain drain of medical doctors, but what we need is to create a pipeline to train more doctors instead of complaining that medical personnel are leaving the country.

“If we train 5,000 doctors yearly, let us increase the numbers to 15,000; by doing so, the country benefits.”

“The Nigerian government should rather look for a way to benefit from the countries our doctors are moving to.

“For example, if 1,000 doctors go to the United Kingdom, the UK Government must pay us something back in return.

“Therefore, our medical colleges need to increase their capacity by training more people,” he insisted.

Nigeria has lost thousands of its medical doctors to other nations.

In March, the World Health Organization, WHO, published the safeguards list comprising 55 countries — including Nigeria — struggling with a shortage of health workers.

The UK government, in its part, stated that Nigeria and other nations on the red list should be prioritized for health staff development and health system support, as well as given protections to discourage active foreign recruiting of their professionals.