Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa has restated his administration’s commitment to increased investment in health and education, saying both sectors are central to improving the living standards of citizens.
Mr Diri, represented by his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, gave the assurance on Friday in Yenagoa when the Ministerial Monitoring Committee of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) High-Impact Intervention in Medical Sciences paid him a courtesy visit.
He said the state government would not relent in injecting more resources into the two sectors, adding that Nigeria needed to embrace modern trends in medicine to tackle challenges in healthcare delivery.
The governor stressed that biomedical engineering and emergency medicine were critical to achieving efficient medical practice in the country, lamenting that the subsisting system remained largely traditional.
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Mr Diri observed that adopting modern medical fields and improving infrastructure would help reduce the migration of highly skilled professionals abroad.
He expressed appreciation to the Minister of Education and the executive secretary of TETFUND for initiating intervention projects at Bayelsa Medical University (BMU).
“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.
Saad Ahmed, leader of the ministerial monitoring team, said the federal government introduced the high-impact project to revitalise medical schools and curb brain drain.
He added that 18 schools had received funds to upgrade infrastructure and equipment in medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy.
