The National Hospital, Abuja has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with four(4) private institutions to enhance capacity of its healthcare workforce.
The Deputy Director, Information and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Alaba Balogun disclosed this in a statement on Friday.
The institutions were the Nile University, Cosmopolitan University, Yangongwo College of Nursing Sciences and, Concerned Medix Foundation.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate stated that the signing of the MoU with the National Hospital, Abuja aligned with the policy of the present administration to expand training capacities of the health workforce.
Prof. Pate further asserted that it was a testament of President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to expand training of health workers, fill the gaps created by those who left and sticking to maintaining standards through the Regulatory and Professional Schools Division of Hospital Services Department of the Ministry.
Government, he stated, has a duty to provide solutions to multitude of challenges, whether it is infrastructure, equipment or human capital development.
He added that it was because Nigerian health workers were well trained that they were attractive to other countries:
“Thankfully, because they are well-trained and, we are very proud of them. If we weren’t training them, they wouldn’t have been attractive to other countries.
“Unfortunately, that has implications on the service delivery at home. So as a government, we took a progressive stance to say, look, let’s train more.
“So that even if those who are trained leave, some will stay. And even those who have gone away might come back to serve. And, that is the driving force behind this policy approval by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu”, he said.
The Minister highlighted the critical importance of the private sector to achieving government’s objective, saying, “our health sector is a mixed system comprising public and private sectors.
“So, the private sector has a space, and I am very pleased that you have joined hands with with the National Hospital to be able to really see how the capabilities of the hospital can help you train more of the clinicians”.
On his part, the Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Prof. Raji Mahmud, commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s priority attention for improving the healthcare system.
The collaboration and signing of MoU between the National Hospital, Abuja and private institutions, he affirmed, will increase healthcare workforce training exponentially.
Prof. Mahmud further pointed out that three out of the four institutions were mainly training institutions to train medical students and nurses alongside the National Hospital.
