By Segun Orisajo &Samuel Adenubi
The dream of prospective candidates itching to pursue a degree in Nursing at Crescent University, Abeokuta will soon be a reality as the university authorities put finishing touches to the commencement of the programme. The Vice Chancellor, Prof Ibrahim Gbajabiamila who dropped this hint in an interview said the institution had in March this year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the management of Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta. The hospital was to serve as a training ground where students will have their practical.
According to the Vice Chancellor , the university was making frantic efforts to increase the number of courses available to students.
His words, “At the moment, we want to introduce College of Health Sciences where interested young Nigerian students can pursue a degree in Nursing. In this regard, we have signed an MOU with the management of FMC,Abeokuta.
“We are reaching out to the Nigerian Nursing and Midwifery Council and the National University Commission (NUC). Once we are through with the processes, we would have been in a position to start degree programme in Nursing. Prof Gbajabiamila bemoaned the increasing exodus of Nigerian Doctors and Nurses to overseas, a situation he blamed on poor working environment.
He noted, “Our Doctors are valued abroad. As a matter of fact, there are more Nigerian Neuro surgeons in United Kingdom and United States of America than in Nigeria. It is a pathetic situation that we as a nation is losing skilled manpower at an alarming rate to the foreign nations of the world”
The Vice chancellor observed that “all the time, we took pain to train our personnel, and in no time , off they go in search of greener pasture elsewhere where they get paid more than ten times in Nigeria” Prof Gbajabiamila, a distinguished academic who had worked for over 30 years in the United Kingdom university urged the Federal Government to take urgent steps to revamp the nation’s ailing health system considering the fact that in some instances countries such as Gambia, Ghana and Republic of Benin look up to Nigeria for health care services. He said, “It is a worrisome situation that in some government hospitals, operations are performed with the aid of touch light.
The X-ray machines and other vital equipment like scanning machines among several others are lacking in most of our hospital.” Commenting on the issue of medical tourism, Prof Gbajabiamila described the trend as a national problem, stressing that cost of medical services abroad are not cheap “but those who can afford it abandon our facilities at home because they know that they will get something better outside the shores of Nigeria”.
He said the only way to discourage the trend was to embark on a total overhauling of the health system in such a way that will make our hospital compare favorably with those abroad. On the issue of drug abuse among Nigerian students, the vice- chancellor said he introduced a Drug Testing Policy in order to check the menace in the institution. “When we first started, we can raid an hostel at 7.00am and take samples. So far, a total number of 23 students have been expelled on account of drug abuse.
As a faith based institution, we have a programme for our students where we lecture them on both the academic and moral values. We teach them to have value for human lives. We try to discourage them from taking the life of their fellow brother and sister.”Prof Gbajabiamila added.
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