Italian medical team trains doctors at Federal Medical Centre

An Italian medical humanitarian organisation — ONG POBIC-ONLUS, on Tuesday, opened training for 30 medical doctors of Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa, on Advanced Life Saving Scheme.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr Dennis Alagoa, who declared the training open, said that the three-day capacity building exercise was to update the skills of the workforce.

Represented by the Centre’s Director of Clinical Services Dr Pre-Preye Numbere, the CMD said that the collaboration between the hospital and ONG POBIC-ONLUS, a medical charity group, dated back to 2014 when the two signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

He urged the beneficiaries drawn from various units of the hospital to utilise the training opportunities to update their knowledge to improve service delivery to their patients.

Mr Paolo Novelin, the President of POBIC-ONLUS, who spoke through an interpreter, said the training was a follow up to an earlier one on Basic Life Saving Scheme conducted at the hospital in 2015.

According to Novelin, the organisation has facilitated 17 free open heart surgeries on indigent children below 15 years in Italy.

He added that plans were underway to open a unit with FMC to carry out such surgeries in Nigeria.

He said continuous training was critical to quality healthcare delivery and urged the participants to avail themselves of the training scheme and upgrade their skills.