The Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) has revealed Nigeria only has about 600 paediatricians catering for the country’s about 170 million population. The president of the association, Prof Olowu Adebiyi said this in an exclusive interview with HealthNewsNG.com on the sidelines of an event organised by Sonafi to mark 2014 World Pneumonia Day.

“It is basically very bad. When we did the last data analysis in 2010, we found out there are just about 500 pediatricians in Nigeria. With the few ones that have qualified since then, we are looking at about 600 pediatricians for the entire country. That figure is still very short of what is expected and it shows that pediatricians are highly in dire need,” Olowu told HealthNewsNG.com

He added that most of the licensed pediatricians are practising in major hospitals in urban areas.

“To make the picture more gloomy, we found out most of the pediatricians are in urban settings and individuals in rural areas are devoid of pediatricians. We want government to make it possible for pediatricians to be willing to go and practice in the rural centers apart from urban centers. Government should introduce some forms of motivation,” he said.

According to him, the few number of the professionals may be due to the longer duration of pediatric training in Nigeria and the preference of doctors for more lucrative specialties.

“We need about 50,000 pediatricians – something like a pediatrician to 250 patients. Government should look at the pediatrics training model in India which takes just between 3 – 4 years to complete, ours takes at least 6 years. We need to also create more awareness among doctors. Our people want to go to areas where they will make more money,” the PAN president said.

He said the association is encouraging its members of volunteer at rural facilities.

“In addition to where they are practicing, we are encouraging our members to adopt a facility where there is no pediatrician. We are encouraging them to engage in volunteer pediatric practice,” Prof Olowu told HealthNewsNG.com

Source: http://healthnewsng.com/nigeria-600-pediatricians-pan/

And out of dat 600 about 15 dey UBTH...nawa oh....make dem dey pass us...

Of course...there is a solution...increase the number of training facilities/tertiary hospitals....and by extension, the number of places for paediatric residents.

So?....wats d quality of d 600?