By Daniel Ayantoye
University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) is hosting a two- week intensive training programme for resident doctors in various aspects of surgery.
The programme, which was organised by the West African College of Surgeons had 185 participants drawn from parts of the country.
Speaking in an interview with Pilot Health on the sideline of the event, the Course Coordinator, Dr. Peter Adeoye, explained that the essence of the programme is to develop more professional surgeons for world class standard.
He disclosed that the training is aimed at exposing participants to specialised aspects of surgery through lectures and practical work.
“This is a yearly programme of the West African College of Surgeons that produces surgeons in various specialities in the West African sub-region.
“UITH is hosting this for the first time and it is a two-week intensive programme that touches every aspect of the surgery based on specialties, ” he added.
Adeoye emphasised that such programme will go a long way in eradicating possibilities of complication during surgical operations.
He further said that surgery can only be a life-saving intervention where the provision of surgical services is professionally carried out by well trained doctors.
“This training is very much relevant to the resident doctors and that is why we at the college have attached much importance to it. Resident doctors are doctors aspiring to be fellows, specialists and consultants in the field of surgery, ” he added
Meanwhile, the Kwara State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has chided the Federal Government for what it described as incessant strike in the health sector.
The association then urged government to ensure it implements agreements signed with health workers in order to avert reoccurrence of industrial doctors.
It maintained that the masses bear brunt of adverse effect of industrial actions by health workers.
Speaking with Pilot Health at the weekend, the state chairman of NMA, Kunle Olawepo, who stated that doctors can only exist when they receive their wages, lamented what he called nonchalance of government towards doctors’ welfare in the country.
According to him, it will be counterproductive to make an agreement which has been signed for a long time ago and not implementing until a strike action is embarked upon.
“There are no two ways to it, government will just have to be faithful to any agreement signed to because if you read through what the demands are, they are not fresh demands of today, some of them are as far back as 2009 for ASUU, 2014 for resident doctors and this is 2017, they are not yet implemented.”
