The King’s College, London, has enlisted the support of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) on its plan in partnership with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to establish a medical school in Abuja.
Deputy Vice President, King’s College, London, Dr Helen Bailey, made the request when she led a delegation on a working visit to the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, on Tuesday in Abuja.
While stating the Abuja medical school would help address the issue of brain drain in the country, Dr Bailey said King’s College was fully ready to collaborate with TETFund and other relevant government bodies to achieve the desired goal.
“One of our partner hospitals, King’s College Hospital is working in partnership with Afreximbank to develop the African Medical Centre of Excellence which the hospital is a key component of.
“Just recently, in November, we signed a memorandum of agreement with Afreximbank to provide a short consultancy project to explore the development of a medical school; a nursing school and a research centre to be co-located with the hospital in the outskirts of Abuja, ” Dr Bailey said.
She said King’s College boasts of one of the largest partnerships with different hospitals in Europe, that also provide education training and research.
Echono in his response, assured the delegation of TETFund’s readiness to provide needed support for King’s College, London, on its partnership with the African Export-Import Bank to establish a medical school in Abuja.
Echono, who expressed delight over the Abuja medical school project, said the Fund is always ready to partner with various bodies in the area of research to address challenges facing the country.
“Giving our heritage and long years of partnership with UK, we are always delighted to have opportunities for collaboration in various fronts.
“I also want to add that in recognition of the huge challenge we face as a country especially in the area of life sciences, medical sciences and the huge foreign exchange expended annually on medical tourism to so many countries on the globe, we welcome any effort that will try and create local content to bring here such modern facilities to the right faculties to ensure we deliver tertiary health care to our people,” he said.
Speaking further, Echono said TETFund was also working alongside others to put in place a modern research centre in Abuja that will draw researchers and postgraduate scholars from existing colleges and universities of medical sciences, among others.
He said the Fund would explore areas of collaboration with the Afreximbank and King’s College on the area of facilities, staff training and research.
“We also have a robust training programme for our personnel, including facilities of our institutions, so we will look at that opportunity because TETFund has an academic staff training programme,” Echono added.
