By Dennis Agbo

The Federal government has asked the Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy Enugu to increase and double its human resource capacity building into the country’s healthcare delivery system.

The government commended the dental college for the resources it has built up since its establishment in 1955 but said that there should be more student enrollment in correspondence with the existing facilities in the institution so that more manpower could be produced for the healthcare sector.

The Minister of State for Health, Dr Tunji Alausa gave the directive during his working tour of the federal healthcare centres and institutions in Enugu state, and shortly after commissioning some projects executed by the administration of the Rector of the Dental College, Prof John Emaimo.

Some of the completed projects commissioned by the Minister included a block of two large lecture halls, a block of Biomedical laboratory and lecture hall, a block of two large classrooms and six offices in a suite with toilets, a Rector’s lodge, a Center for Entrepreneurial Development building, Lawn Tennis court, Medical Center extension and 16 units of toilets.

The minister commended the administration of the college Rector, Prof Emaimo, for the infrastructure, tidiness and discipline in the college, noting that he was impressed with what he saw in the college.

“I commend the Rector of the college, Prof John Emaimo for the excellent work he has done here. President Bola Tinubu has given the Minister for Health and me the mandate to revamp, strengthen and restructure the healthcare system at Pillar Two, to improve the population outcome by strengthening the healthcare delivery system.

“What they are doing in the Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy Enugu falls into pillar two. It’s producing good dental manpower to go into the health workforce to help in providing the desirable manpower that we need to continue in the provision of quality healthcare to the citizens of Nigeria.

“We are providing facilities to the Dental College Enugu to help train the students better, just as in other healthcare institutions; we have to produce more healthcare workers to meet the demand of our healthcare workforce.

“The college has done well but there is still room for improvement, my advice is that I want the Rector to begin to increase the capacity to admit more students. We have young brilliant Nigerians who want to go to school. They want to study courses that will be productive for the country and society at large.

“I know the Rector has built the students’ population base, but he should double it. This is a beautiful campus and it has space. It just has to continue to explore the capacity so that you can provide more opportunities to train more Nigerians so that at the end of the day the country will be the beneficiary of the quality products from this institution,” Alausa said.