* Luke Commends Udofia for Generous Donation Towards AKSUTH.

Obong Akan Udofia has challenged private investors to help redeem the deplorable state of medical environmental in the country as a way of stemming the increasing brain drain ravaging the country.

Udofia, the CEO of Desicon Engineering Group, who was the chairman at a doctors’ meet in Uyo on Friday, November 26, 2021, decried the poor remuneration of doctors as well as the inhuman conditions some of them work.

The gathering was the 2021 NEC Meeting of the National Association of Government General Medical & Dental Practitioners ( NAGGMDP) with the theme: “Stemming the Tide of Brain Drain in Nigeria: The away Forward”.

In line with the theme, Udofia urged investors within and outside Nigeria to help salvage the situation as the brain drain was leading to devastating health implications on the populace.

Consequently, he said, while doctors’ brain drain results in Nigeria’s social and health losses, it unfortunately leads to the economic gain of the receiving countries.

“We must at this stage understand that government can’t do it alone. The only way we can tackle this monster (brain drain) today is to also involve the private sector in a partnership scheme. The private sector has to be a partner in what we are talking about. We also have to look for ways and means to invest in health education, particularly in the tertiary education side. We must give the medical practitioners the verve and the pride to maintain the love and the dignity of the profession”

He also said: “A lot of us do not understand that the working conditions of some of these doctors are, to say the least, very very unhealthy and unbecoming. It is as a matter of urgency that I will implore everyone of us outside government, even as a moral duty, to contribute our little to stem the brain drain. It affects our social and economic standing. Just like the name suggests, we are losing something, and we are losing it to somewhere else, to other countries. As ours (doctors) leave, it empowers their (other countries’) GDP and degrades our own GDP.

Udofia said it was important to act beyond “sit and talk” to ensure that our “health practitioners have a conducive environment, they must be duly remunerated commensurate to their education, commensurate to the kind of work they are doing. So that we do not have any more of our highly skilled doctors going out of this country to offer their services and by so doing depleting our social-economic standing”.

Udofia’s position was adopted by the Keynote Speaker, Barr Onofiok Luke, who spared time to thank the Desicon boss for leading the way, as a private investor, in helping to salvage the deplorable health situation.

He particularly made reference to Udofia’s recent commendable donation of N100million towards the building of a Teaching Hospital at the Akwa Ibom State University.

Udofia and Luke agreed that government cannot do it alone, even as they acknowledged Gov Udom Emmanuel’s enormous impact on the health sector in Akwa Ibom State