By Sola Ogundipe &  Gabriel Olawale
A PROFESSOR of Reproductive Endocrinology and Joint Pioneer of IVF in Nigeria and West Africa, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru has called for the setting up of regional centres of intellect as a way of improving access to qualitative healthcare services in Nigeria.

In a chat with Good Health Weekly, Ashiru, who is the Chief Medical Director,  Medical ART Centre,n Lagos,   said such a Centre would  help in grooming a new generation of experts that would later on add the much desired quality life to Nigerians and Africans at large.

Prof Oladapo Ashiru

Regretting that Nigeria has  continued in its old ways of building structures and acquiring new equipment without the personnel to handle them, he remarked: “I have been saying it long before now that Nigeria needs to set up regional centres of intellect and this does not mean reinventing the wheel. There are many Teaching Hospitals in the country, most of them do not  have all the necessary manpower that can operate  infrastructure.

Recruitment: “They need to recruit experts within and outside the country to help in some of the key areas. For instance, from 1990 to 1998, about 10 per cent of Nigerians stayed in Nigeria to obtain help for IVF, but today, the number of Nigerians seeking IVF and other infertility treatment procedures within Nigeria has increased to  95 per cent. Just 5 per cent travels abroad for infertility treatment.”

Further, Ashiru explained that the country can recruit experts from outside the country who are Nigerians to help in setting up these Centres.

Engagement: He said these experts should be engaged, even if it is just for two years to assist in getting the centres up and running and to train Nigerians to take over its running.

“If we don’t do this, our health sector as a nation won’t be good. When our forefathers started medical school in Nigeria, they were recruiting experts from abroad to train us so that we could work.

“The late Professor Phillip Adedotun Okeowo, who was a specialist in Ear, Nose and Throat, ENT, surgery was among the best of all the sets in the College of Medicine, University Of Lagos, in 1960s.  In those days, government showed interest in the College and in the students.

“Some of those students went on to become professors in different specialities and Okeowo was one of them. He started to train ENT surgeons and finally developed the ENT centre in Kaduna. This is the kind of thing we should be  doing now.

“But government is fond of building centres and acquiring equipment even when it is obvious there will be nobody to operate the centres and equipment, and at the end it would be a waste of money. They will buy machines like the MRI and put it in Sokoto where there is nobody to use it.”

Ashiru remarked that after setting up the Centre, an  independent committee that will report directly to the President should be inaugurated.

He argued that except the President shows direct interest there will be no change. “Another thing we need to understand is that health cannot be 100 per cent free. Government must allocate enough money for health and healthcare personnel must be paid as they work, and not really placed on on salary.

“Then when there is strike, there would be no talk of payment because you would only get paid for work done. In America, as a professor of medicine. you get remunerated based on amount of money you make for the department, either from your research grant, or from clinical practice.”