Bayelsa State Governor Douye Diri has said Nigeria’s healthcare system can be significantly improved if political leaders and stakeholders show greater commitment and adopt modern approaches to medical practice.
Mr Diri gave the charge on Friday in Yenagoa while receiving members of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee on the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) High-Impact Intervention in Medical Sciences.
He was represented at the event by his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, says News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report.
The governor observed that the country’s health sector still relied on traditional methods and urged institutions to embrace emerging fields such as biomedical engineering and emergency medicine.
He noted that doing so would enhance healthcare delivery and reduce the number of professionals seeking opportunities abroad.
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According to him, Bayelsa is determined to strengthen both health and education, stressing that the two sectors remain central to improving people’s welfare.
“We have been looking for partnerships such as this to enable us to do better. Again, I think we should start looking at modern trends in medicine because Nigeria is still very traditional in medical practice,” he said.
The governor pledged that his administration would continue investing resources in health and education to build human capacity and improve service delivery.
Earlier, the leader of the monitoring team, Dr Saad Ahmed, explained that the federal government launched the high-impact project to revitalise medical schools and expand the production of healthcare professionals.
He disclosed that 18 medical schools across Nigeria had been selected to benefit from the initiative, which focuses on upgrading infrastructure and equipment for programmes in medicine, dentistry, nursing sciences, and pharmacy.
Dr Ahmed added that the intervention was designed as a strategic response to the growing trend of medical personnel leaving the country for work opportunities abroad.
