Nigeria needs no fewer than 237,000 medical doctors to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) standard, a professor of medicine and chairman, Association of Colleges of Medicine of Nigeria, Folashade Ogunsola, has said.

Mrs. Ogunsola disclosed this at the opening of a three-day Capacity Development Programme for Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) Academic Staff in Nigerian Universities organised by National Universities Commission on Monday in Abuja.

According to her, WHO’s ratio for any country to have enough doctors for its population is 1:600 (one doctor of every 600 persons).

“We will need about 237, 000 medical doctors and we have about 35,000 working in the country today.

“We have trained more than that, many of them have left the country while many others are in different professions — banking, music and so on.

“Medicine is about life; it is the duty of the medical schools to produce people with competences; skills to manage patients.

“Assuming no doctor leaves this country after being trained; going by the number coming from our medical schools every year, it will take us about 100 years to have the number of doctors we need.’’

Mrs. Ogunsola, who lectures at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, said that aside that number, the quality of doctors was crucial.

According to her, medical schools have quotas at present — the number of students they can admit because they can only train with the facilities they have.