Worried by the yearly crippling impact of loss of no fewer than 2,000 medical doctors to brain drain, the Medical Guild, an association of Lagos State Government employed medical and dental practitioners, has urged the state and Federal governments to declare a state of emergency in the health sector with a view to finding drastic solutions to the problem.
The Chairman of Medical Guild, Dr. Sa’eid Ahmad, who stated that Nigeria loses about 2,000 medical doctors to brain drain yearly, lamented that the country only trains and produces barely half of this number. Ahmad has consequently urged governments at all levels to declare a state of emergency in the health sector to tackle the mounting problems bedevilling the public health system.
According to him, this call has become necessary because “we cannot address an existential problem through the same ineffective ‘normal’ bureaucratic routines that led us here.”
He made the call at a press conference to announce the Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the Medical Guild, which took place in Lagos. This year’s Medical Guild AGM and Scientific Conference is themed, ‘Existential Challenges of Medical Personnel Retention and Resources Management in an Emerging World-Class Health System: The Real Issues and the Lagos Panacea.’
In his keynote address, Prof. Akin Abayomi, Lagos State Health Commissioner, said the country needs to adjust next year’s budgetary allocation to the sector to meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) minimum of 15 per cent of the total allocation if it really wants to address the numerous problems plaguing the health sector, as advocated by the chairman of Medical Guild.
Rather than spend this budget on constructing new health institutions, Ahmad stressed that existing ones should be upgraded with emphasis on medical human resources retention strategies.
“Drugs don’t prescribe themselves and surgeries are not performed by concrete and project sign-posts; doctors and humans do! While acknowledging the strides of Lagos State over and above all others, we hereby call for a deliberate ‘budget of health system redemption’ in the coming year, which will have direct incentive provisions for doctors and other health workers.