The Asaba Specialist Hospital has commenced the process of securing full accreditation from the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) for its Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department to enable the hospital train resident doctors and strengthen its specialist medical workforce.
The accreditation exercise, which took place on Thursday, involved a team from WACS inspecting facilities and equipment in the department, touring consulting rooms and interacting with resident doctors.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Peace Ighosewe, said the move was necessary to address the growing difficulty in recruiting specialist doctors amid the increasing brain drain in the health sector.
She said the department had made significant progress in meeting the requirements for accreditation, including the provision of facilities for non-invasive gynaecological procedures such as hysteroscopy and colposcopy.
According to her, the WACS team assessed the department's facilities and identified areas requiring further improvement, while also engaging resident doctors on measures to enhance healthcare delivery.
Ighosewe said accreditation would enable the hospital to train doctors who would eventually become consultants, thereby creating a sustainable pool of specialists to provide care to patients.
“Accreditations are very demanding, but it is worth it because at the end of the day, you get the opportunity to train residents who will become the next generation of consultants and provide care to our teeming patients,” she said.
She expressed optimism that the department would meet the requirements for full accreditation, noting that most of the issues earlier raised by the college had been addressed.
“We're hopeful that today we'll be able to satisfy the needs of the college so that we can get full accreditation because we've done most of what they requested,” she said.
The Chief Medical Director said the accreditation had become particularly important because of the difficulty in recruiting consultants, largely as a result of the migration of Nigerian medical professionals in search of opportunities abroad.
“With the Japa syndrome, it's very difficult to get consultants to employ these days. But now we've trained, it means that we have a steady supply of fellows to provide that specialty service,” she said.
The exercise is expected to pave the way for expanded residency training at the hospital and increase access to specialised medical services in Delta State.
The WACS accreditation process, when successfully completed, will also strengthen the hospital's capacity to develop specialist manpower and reduce its dependence on external recruitment at a time when brain drain continues to pose challenges to Nigeria's healthcare system.
