Indian doctors train 250 Nigerian counterparts on health care

By Musa Adamu

At least 250 Nigerian doctors would be trained in various fields for the period of five years, a Kaduna basesd Indian health care organization, has disclosed.
Speaking at a Doctors’ Forum in Abuja, Dr Arun Saroha, Department of Neuroaurgery, Max Super Speciality Hospital, West Block, New Delhi, said the target wass to upgrade the healthcare scenario in Nigeria.
He said: “Today we are here to talk about neurosurgery and orthopeadics. The next could be cancer or cardiology. We keep on changing but for us the ideology or the basis is the same.
“We are very comfortable to take about forty to fifty doctors every year in various fields.
“We are doing the same exercise in Kenya, Sudan and Rwanda; in Tanzanian we have started recently and obviously Nigeria is another one. We are here to train the people; we are here to tell them what Max Health Care is all about, what we are doing so that they understand and they can come to us.
“This is an exercise that we are going to do continuously for next five years; and we come here every three months. The doctors are some selected representative of our healthcare sector.”
He said the candidates would sponsor themselves but that whatever they trained would be free.
“ It is going to be a certificate course which they can officially put on their letterheads and they will be known as more trained on that field. There is no cost implication here except they would buy for themselves ticket and basic stay in India.”
The CME Coordinator and Senior Consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, Gwarimpa General Hospital, Dr Adeoye James Adetiloye, said the initiative was a win win for all.
He said: “When they come (Max Healthcare), some hospitals that has them as partners – the Nigeria surgeons – they train them and also render this care to Nigerian patients. So, ultimately, it is the Nigerian patients that are the beneficiaries while healthcare workers also get trained on some of the new advances in healthcare.”