FUOYE Council Pledges to Enhance Development at FETHI

Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti

The FUOYE Governing Council Chairman, Mr. Kayode Ojo, has promised to fast-track the development of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti (FETHI), following the partnership between the two institutions as part of efforts to reposition medical education in Nigeria.

The council chairman stated this at Ido Ekiti during a visit of members of the FUOYE council and management to FETHI.

As the federal government approves, FUOYE medical and nursing students are to use FETHI to teach hospital and clinical purposes.

Ojo, who said the FUOYE council and management would sit with FETHI leadership on the gaps to be filled, said, “Repositioning medical education and the health sector should not be compromised. The first thing is that there are no hostels here at FETHI for the students. That is a critical area that we have to look into as a matter of urgency.”

He lauded FETHI’s Chief Medical Director, Prof Adekunle Ajayi, for the good job being done in the health facility, saying, “I am extremely interested in seeing how we can improve this institution so that it can benefit the students, the personnel and also the hospital as it relates to the community.”

Ajayi lauded the commitment of FUOYE’s political leadership, saying it would ensure mobilisation of needed resources “to improve quality for medical education and consequently improve the capacity of our health workforce to be able to effectively care for Nigerians.”

Ajayi said FETHI had the necessary experience, facilities, equipment and personnel “to be able to give FUOYE the standard platform to launch into stardom and I want to believe that FUOYE will capitalize on our level of experience to do this.”

He, however, said medical education was capital intensive, stressing that the hospital and university must partner to ensure that the required facilities are available for the students to have quality training.

He said, “We are more than prepared. We have experience. FETHI has four annexes at Ado, Igogo, and Ise, and we have been mandated to take over the federal health facility at Ilawe Ekiti. We receive referrals from more than 460 healthcare facilities.

“The hospital has an affiliation with 15 other colleges for the clinical training of students in courses. We have over 100 consultants in different fields of medicine. We have about 180 resident doctors currently in training in this hospital. We have over 400 nurses in different areas of specialisation, we have about 38 pharmacists, we have psychotherapists, medical Laboratory scientists, etc. We have about 3000 people working in the hospital.”
FUOYE Vice-Chancellor, Prof Abayomi Fasina, said the import of the visit was for the council to have first-hand information “so that it will take a very good decision on the way forward on how we can pump infrastructure into this place to really train our students properly.”