Senate wants MDCN to blacklist substandard foreign medical institutions

Senate Committee on Health has urged Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) to blacklist foreign medical institutions that do not meet its requirements on training and practice of medicine in Nigeria.

Chairman of the committee, Sen. Ibrahim Oloriegbe (APC-Kwara), made the call in Abuja on Monday at an interactive session with executive members of MDCN.

Oloriegbe said that the interactive session with MDCN was occasioned by complaints of subjection of Nigerian foreign medical graduates to six months mandatory internship programme before being certified to practise in Nigeria.

He said that the meeting was also aimed at reviewing the outcome of the 2021 foreign medical and dental licensing examination, held in Sokoto.

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The lawmaker said that it was also targeted at presenting updates on issues relating to implementation of housemanship and licensing of foreign medical professionals by MDCN.

Although Oloriegbe frowned at admitting quacks into the nation’s medical practice, he, however, noted that efforts must be made to ensure that foreign institutions, where Nigerian medical students graduated, met MDCN’s requirements.

He said in the event that such institutions did not meet the requirements, such institutions should be blacklisted in order to deter Nigerians from securing admission into them.

The senator also sought explanations on the alleged high internship and examination fees by foreign medical graduates undertaking the six months programme before receiving certification to practise in Nigeria.

Sen. Berty Apiafi (PDP- Rivers) also argued that it was unfair to subject Nigerians, who had been certified to practise medicine from foreign schools, to another mandatory examination in the country.

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According to her, this is an additional burden on parents who had spent much in funding the education of their wards abroad.

She advised that the prescribed examination and internship by MDCN be made optional, as the students had already qualified and certified by their various institutions abroad to practise.

Earlier, Chairman of MDCN, Prof. Abba Hassan, said that the internship and examination for Nigerians who studied in foreign medical schools were designed to certify them worthy to practise medicine in Nigeria.

He explained that the payment of the examination fee for the entire program was based on the content of the curriculum, drawn by the MDCN committee responsible for execution of the program.

Hassan also said that that essence of the internship was to further update and bring up to standard the requirements needed to practise in the country.

He said that the choice of having a centre in each of the six geo-political zones for the MDCN examination was based on the number of candidates for the program.

He, however, said that MDCN would subject the centres to periodic review. (NAN)