Ex-UNILAG medical students target N2b research centre

As a way of strengthening health education and medical care system in the country, graduates from College of Medicine, University of Lagos, UNILAG, Akoka, have planned to build a medical research centre that worth more than N2 billion and be of an international standard for the college.

A professor of anatomy and alumnus of the college, Oladapo Ashiru, made this disclosure on Wednesday in Lagos while addressing newsmen about the college alumni forthcoming high table\fund-raising dinner holding in February 2019, in Lagos.

According to him, building the research centre with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment and the provision of utility vehicles and so forth will not only boost medical research activities in the college and Nigeria by extension but will also stem the brain drain and medical tourism syndromes in the country.

He said it would be impossible for any country that does not give meaningful research activities a deserved attention to attain appreciable greatness in medical field and health sector as a whole.

He, however, observed that government at all levels could not all alone provide for quality education and training, especially on the basis of their dwindling incomes, hence the intervention of private sector including alumni associations in giving back to their Alma matter.

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Prof Ashiru, who addressed the press on the capacity of being the chairman of organising committee for the proposed dinner and with the provost of the college, Prof Foluso Afolabi, in attendance, explained that the development of any university anywhere in the world lies greatly on the volume of financial and technical support received from its former students, parent fora, friends and philanthropic individuals and organisations.

“That is how universities like Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and many others in the United States and United Kingdom get to the stages they are today,” he stressed.

He noted that the 56-year-old college which today has nine programmes and over 500 yearly enrollment into medicine, dentistry, nursing, medical lab sciences, pharmacology, and physiotherapy had produced more than 6,000 graduates so far.