Reps committed to halting health workers’ exodus – Dep speaker

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Okezie Kalu, has expressed the parliament’s readiness to support efforts that will increase more skilled health workers in the country and curtail their exodus seeking greener pastures abroad.

Kalu disclosed this when he received a delegation from a Turkish company, Duysiad Group and Flekssit Office Furniture Limited led by its President, Ahmet Kızılöz, in his office at the National Assembly.

The Special Assistant (SA) on Press Affairs to the Deputy Speaker, Udora Orizu, in a statement, said Kalu decried the impact of the exodus of medical professionals from Nigeria, saying that it might lead to the importation of health services.

Kalu called for mechanisms and structures to be put in place to refill and replace, noting that the nation’s problem was not with numbers, but with skills.

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Commending the Turkish company for their interest in establishing a medical school which will focus on healthcare education and research, the deputy speaker said that Nigeria was ready for investors to come in.

He recalled that President Bola Tinubu during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia expressed Nigeria’s readiness for investment, adding that the parliament would in line with the government’s Renewed Hope agenda soften the ground for investors through a legal framework.

The statement reads in part: “The parliament will be supporting any efforts towards that direction to make sure we have more skilled health workers in our country. It’s our intention to take care of our medical issues and health security using or leveraging our local health professionals rather than importing health services from outside the country.”

Kalu also sought the company’s support for his initiative, known as “Peace in the South East Project (PISE-P).

Earlier, the delegation told the deputy speaker that they sought collaboration to establish a state-of-the-art furniture academy to foster local talent and skills in the furniture industry and a medical school focusing on healthcare education and research.