Unilag to produce 1,000 doctors in a year— VC

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) is setting an ambitious target to significantly boost Nigeria’s healthcare workforce, with Folasade Ogunsola, the institution’s vice-chancellor revealing plans to graduate 1,000 doctors within a year.

Ogunsola speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the ultra-modern hostel for medical students at the university’s College of Medicine campus at Idi-Araba on Wednesday, emphasised that the dream of the institution is to produce 1,000 doctors every year.

“I want to say that that journey is not over; this campus is small, but our dream would be to be producing 1,000 doctors a year.

“If we’re going to increase the numbers of health care workforce, then we have to prepare the infrastructure to train them, because the training for health care workforce is not just whether you pass or fail, but whether you’re safe to be unleashed on the public,” she said.

The vice-chancellor said that for a long time, the university could only train about 150 doctors, and 50 nurses per year; which she described as not good enough for country like Nigeria with about 226 million people.

According to the Nigeria Health Watch report, “Nigeria needs nearly 400,000 doctors to meet international standards, but has only around 66,000.

The doctor-to-patient ratio in Nigeria is severely low, with estimates placing it at approximately one doctor for every 3,000 to 10,000 patients, far below the widely cited World Health Organization recommendation of 1:600.

This crisis is driven by a massive “brain drain” of medical professionals, with urban areas far better served than rural regions.

Ogunsola emphasised that for universities such as the University of Lagos to increase the number of doctors and other health care workforce output, there is need for improved infrastructure delivery.

“Training healthcare workers, requires more bed spaces in the hospital, we need laboratories, and hostel, which have to be close by, because they also go for call at night

“You can’t train health care workers without making sure that they have accommodation around the hospitals,” she noted.

According to a 2025 Nigeria Health Statistics Report, 4,193 doctors and dentists left Nigeria in 2024. Earlier reports indicated that over 16,000 doctors had migrated over the past five to seven years.

The President of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) reported that 15,495 nurses left Nigeria for foreign practice as of February 2025.

The vice-chancellor noted that Nigeria must train more health care workers to bridge the gap, emphasising that the need for more health care workforce has been one that’s been for a very long time, but not much has been done about it.

Recall that President Bola Tinubu mandated universities in Nigeria to produce at least 20,000 doctors yearly to address the brain drain the health sector.

And matching word with actions, the government has commenced infrastructural development across federal universities in the country.