Two medical specialists have identified lack of medical equipment and dearth of trained specialists as major reasons forcing many medical experts to travel abroad for more training.

They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that after the training overseas, such persons settled there for plush jobs.

Prof. Akinyinka Omigbodun and Dr Olutola Olutosin spoke with NAN in separate interviews on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Permanent Secretariat of the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) at Yaba, Lagos.

Omigbodun, the WACS President and a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, said the country did not have all equipment that matched the skills that many medical experts had acquired.

“Many of us have trained in other parts of the world with sophisticated equipment.

“The equipment is not available here; we therefore cannot practise in full-fledged what we have learnt as specialists,’’ he said.

Omigbodun, however, said that WACS had attracted support from well-wishers and Foundations from outside the country “but now we are beginning to have support from within Nigerians’’.

“We have philanthropists, who are supporting surgical education and health care for all population, because funding from public sector alone cannot be sufficient to provide many of those equipment,’’ he said.

Also, Olutosin, a Consultant and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anaesthesia, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, said foreign trips by Nigerian medical specialists was affecting the intensity and quality of training at home.

Olutosi, who is the WACS Secretary, told NAN that lack of equipment and inadequate trained specialists made a lot of people to seek medical treatment abroad.

“It is true that majority of us travel abroad for greener pastures but our training programme are well subscribed by majority of products from our medical schools.

“Medicine or postgraduate training cannot be an island in the ocean of challenges that are facing this nation,’’ he said.

The specialists, however, appealed to the Federal Government to increase funding of the health sector, especially the training unit for medical education to be better.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, who was also present at the event, said that the Federal Government was committed to improving funding for health sector.

Adewole said that N11.7 billion was set aside in the 2017 budget for revitalisation of seven tertiary health institutions in the country.