The newly elected National President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Professor Afekhide Omoti has advocated improved working conditions, conducive environment, security among others to check brain drain in the medical field.

Omoti stated this when he was received at the Benin Airport by the members and leadership of the NMA Edo State Branch, Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) and other affiliates associations.

Speaking to journalists, Omoti also said he would make the welfare of doctors his priority.

According to him, “We will do everything in our power to restore the dignity of the medical doctors and to improve their welfare.

“Once we can achieve that and of course their security and conduce work environment for medical practitioners and indeed all health workers, that will significantly check brain drain.

“Our young ones cannot finish and go abroad because at the moment, all they do is finish school and they think about first how to write foreign exams and take off.

“We want to make sure that that kind of thing stops because we cannot be training doctors for the rest of the world, we have to train doctors for Nigeria or else very soon, we will have nobody to look after us and it is very bad at the moment, it is very urgent and we must act now.”

On the welfare of workers, Omoti said he would advocate for their welfare, rights and privileges “irrespective of their levels, their cadre, their location that we will try to do and of-course strive to improve the healthcare system of Nigeria for the benefit of all Nigerians.”

On his part, the State chairman of the NMA, Dr. Eustace Oseghale said it was a privilege that Omoti became president of the association in his tenure and that the election was for the good of every Edo born doctor anywhere in the world and every doctor irrespective of their origin that have practiced or still practicing in the state.