The Federal Government and the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), have expressed worries over the mass migration of Nigeria-trained health care professionals.
They noted that, while Nigeria has the third highest number of foreign doctors working in the United Kingdom after India and Pakistan, the country lost over 9,000 medical doctors to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America between 2016 and 2018.
Also, 727 medical doctors trained in Nigeria relocated to the United Kingdom alone between December last year and May this year.
Furthermore, the data from the Register of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of the UK shows that the number of Nigeria-trained nurses increased by 68.4 per cent from 2,790 in March 2017 to 7,256 in March 2022.
They, therefore, advocated the need to create a conducive environment for healthcare professionals to thrive in their profession, while other socio-economic aspects such as insecurity, poor remuneration and welfare, etc., are adequately addressed.
During a national symposium in Abuja anchored by the Partnership for Advancing Child and Family Health at Scale (PAS), a policy advocacy project implemented, through strategic partnerships by the development Research and Projects (dRPC) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to address brain drain in the country, the President of the NMA, Dr Uche Ojinmah said: “As of now, Nigeria-trained doctors are leaving in droves for Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. No official figures yet, but it can’t be less than 2,000.
“It is sad to note that developing countries are confronted with the loss of their most valuable intellectuals and the investment in their education, to the benefit of developed nations.
“The brain drain is real. But it is worse as it pertains to medical residency (medical postgraduate clinical training) programmes in Nigeria because the trainers (specialists) and trainees/possible trainees (raw material) are being “drained” down to dregs.”
The Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Prof. Ayo Omotayo, said: “There is a need for an improved health workers’ supply to tackle the supply deficit to solve the disease burden and positively turn the tide of health indicators.
“In addition, there is the need for our country to meet the 15 per cent allocation of the total domestic budget to the health sector as pledged by Nigeria and African countries in 2001.”