‘Nigeria may not achieve health goals’

By Sade Oguntola - 30.03.2008

PRESIDENT, West African Health Organisation, a specialised Agency of ECOWAS, Professor Kayode Odusote has said that Nigeria like other African countries may not be able to achieve the many health goals of the Millennium Development goals if its health work force continues to decline.

Professor Bankole stated this in a keynote address he gave with the title; “Manpower Development in the Neurosciences” at the opening of the 40th Scientific and Annual Congress of the Nigerian Society of Neurological Sciences, which was held at School of Nursing, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.

With Africa having about 25 per cent of the disease problems in the world, he said the current human resource on ground is far short of what is required for adequate health coverage of the continent and that the few available are not adequately distributed.

“No country in Africa has as much as 150 doctors per 100,000 of the populations unlike in developed countries. This is nowhere close to the required number of doctors per a population of 100,000. Nigeria’s 27 doctors per a 100,000 population equally do not have an appropriate distribution, “ he stated.