In a bid to tackle the high rate of brain drain in Nigeria’s health sector, Abayomi Ajayi an Obstetrician /Gynaecologist and the managing director of Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos has said the organisation’s foundation is launching a mentoring programme for young doctors in the country.
The initiative which is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme aims to retain and support physicians in the formative years of their careers, as well as providing a forum for experienced doctors to share knowledge and give back to the community at large.
According to Ajayi, physician mentoring the programme was developed because of the need to enhance the career growth of young physicians and improve transformative leadership in the medical profession noting that the programme is intended to facilitate, not restrict, the participation of mentors and mentees and enable them to explore the great opportunities created when two personalities are paired.
“We want to have a balanced profession, sometimes these young ones need someone who can give them words of wisdom that will help to develop and discover who they are. We need Nigerian young professionals to know that there is a still future in the country,” he said.
Ajayi further said that graduates’ leaving any country in droves is a bad sign. Statistics show Nigeria’s poor doctor-population ratio of 1:6000 as compared with the World Health Organisation standards of 1:1000 is bad.
“In Nigeria, you can decide what you want to be because the opportunities are more and that is the message we want to deliver,” he said.
However, mentoring is a mutually beneficial relationship which involves a more experienced person helping a less experienced person to identify and achieve their goals.
Also speaking one of the mentors, Bomi Ogedengbe professor of Obstetrics and gynaecology explains that she is involved in accreditations in medical school and that there are many complaints regarding how doctors are leaving the shores of the country with their families.
“It’s a crisis, I think this initiative can stem tide it partly because most of them leave out of frustration,” she said.
Ogedengbe said that in as much as a doctor wants to become a specialist, we know what their various challenges and there is a need for mentoring.
“The cabals of the mentors will help identify individuals need and support them; share their several examples, experiences where such things have shaped them so that they become a success,”
In the same vein, Funmi Babington- Ashaye managing director and chief executive officer Risk Analyst Insurance Brokers Limited, Lagos said that we should all learn from this on how to impact the society and issues that need to be handled are been done properly.
“You need mentoring for a different purpose and it is important not to walk alone because this mentor will help you review, set goals and achieve it both in short and long term.”
“Most times mentors are successful because they have knowledge and have passed through those phases, so you are not walking alone because they want you to succeed more than them,” she said.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
