The authorities must give adequate attention to the health sector
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has warned that the country might lose more than 50 per cent of its skilled healthcare workforce by 2025 due to the mass migration of doctors and nurses. “The last few years have been particularly challenging for the health sector in Nigeria given the unabating exodus of healthcare workers, especially doctors and nurses, from Nigeria in search of greener pastures,” NMA Chairman, Ogun State Branch, Dr Azim Ashimi, stated in a New Year message. “It will be foolhardy to think that we will have the younger and less skilled professionals to hold forth because they also constitute a major percentage of those not willing to stay.”
According to the NMA, about 50 doctors migrate from the country every week. That many of these medical doctors are products of our tuition-free public universities makes the situation even more troubling. For context, Nigeria had trained about 100,000 medical doctors as of May 2022. Of the number, 70 per cent migrated to the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and other nations they feel their services are better valued. To compound the challenge, doctors are not the only health professionals seeking greener pastures abroad. Medical laboratory practitioners, pharmacists, nurses and allied personnel are also leaving the country in droves.
The reasons for the mass exodus of doctors, trained largely at public expense, are obvious. Like academics and indeed other professionals, they are treated with disdain. They work long hours in poor health conditions. This is exacerbated by inadequate and ageing infrastructure, and poor remunerations. Besides, in some states of the federation, doctors are owed salaries for months, thus prompting frequent industrial actions. Agreements with government are hardly honoured.
With an overwhelming pressure on the few remaining doctors in the country, the federal government must consider the situation in the health sector a national emergency. It is bad enough that the nation does not have the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended number of medical doctors for the population, but a further depletion of the remaining few will complicate issues. As a matter of urgency, the federal government must address the root causes of the migration; chief among which are insecurity, poor incentives, bad working conditions, and low funding of the health sector.
Agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Canada, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and many other countries routinely conduct recruitment exercises in a country of one doctor to more than 5000 patients, a far cry from the WHO recommended ratio of one to 600. Nigerian doctors are among the least paid globally; a situation that spurs them to move to countries where they can get better incentives. Till date, Nigeria’s health sector funding still dangles between two and three per cent in allocation of the entire national budget. Even if the entire health sector allocation is released – which is usually not the case – the amount cannot address issues of primary healthcare, not to mention other areas of the sector.
This apparent neglect of the health sector is encouraging medical tourism among the middle class and the wealthy. There are no adequate statistics but there is no doubt that Nigerians are spending a fortune outside the country on health. To reverse the country’s worsening health sector, and retain the very best professionals at home, health authorities must improve the present work environment. Nigeria has what it takes to equip the hospitals with the best equipment available while remunerations should be competitive. The pasture should be made greener at home.
