Professor Pierre Gomez made this disclosure recently at a presser held at the Ministry in Bijilo on government’s planned move to construct the State of-the-art School of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences at the UTG.
The project, which is worth about 46 million dollars, is set to be erected at the University of The Gambia (UTG) Campus at the Faraba Banta Campus.
After the completion of this ambitious project, he said the school will move from 80 to 1200 medical students from the first year to six years.
“Then Pharmacy, which we do not have, will also help us to produce specialists in that. 1200 from the first to the sixth years and nursing for the four years, and some who are two and half years will have 1800 and the Allied Health Sciences, the Bio Medical Sciences 600 whilst public health will have 800, among others.”
Within a short period, Prof. Gomez noted that the medical landscape is going to change and then, The Gambia will become a hub for medical education, where some people will come to the country for academic tourism.
“We will now be able to serve ourselves and then export our skill labor,” he said, adding that The Gambia will have a mechanism that will produce students year-in and year-out.
In view of this fact, he said The Gambia government has decided to act, saying they have received instructions from President Adama Barrow to go all out to ensure that the project is implemented as soon as possible with a time frame of two years.
He emphasised that the nation’s independence must makes sense to the citizenry, adding that for the interest of the common good and in the service to the Republic, they want to ensure that with all stakeholders, they will effectively deliver the project as usual.
