It’s no news that many Nigerian healthcare professionals continue to leave the country for pastures new.
A national symposium on brain drain that took place in Abuja, this week, further highlighted the increasing exodus of Nigerian doctors and nurses to foreign lands because of poor working conditions in the country.
The exit figures are disturbing. More than 9,000 medical doctors are reported to have left the country to work in the UK, Canada and America, between 2016 and 2018. Also, more than 700 medical doctors trained in Nigeria are said to have relocated to the UK between December 2021 and May this year, a period of six months. The number of Nigeria-trained nurses registered in the UK is said to have grown from 2,790 in March 2017 to 7,256 in March 2022.
The President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Uche Ojinmah, said at the event: “As of today, 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 as of today.”
It is alarming that the authorities, who should tackle the problem, are busy doing nothing about it. There are consequences. The country’s doctor-patient ratio is alarmingly low, and is nowhere near the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard doctor-patient ratio of one doctor per 600 people.
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With only about four doctors available per 10,000 people in Nigeria, it is unsurprising that there are issues regarding availability of, and access to, quality primary healthcare services in the country.
The Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Prof. Ayo Omotayo, also observed at the event that “there is a need for an improved health workers’ supply to tackle the supply deficit.” He added: “there is the urgent need for our country to meet the 15 percent allocation of the total domestic budget to the health sector as pledged by Nigeria and African countries in 2001.”
In April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met in Abuja and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector. It is disappointing that Nigeria has consistently failed to meet the standard of the Abuja Declaration.
The country’s 2022 budget is N17.16 trillion, and N724 billion (4.2 percent) was allocated for healthcare across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. This picture of poor funding shows why health-sector budget improvement is a necessity.
It’s likely healthcare professionals will continue to leave the country as if escaping from a hopeless situation. The authorities should urgently deal with the contributory factors. It’s clear who is to blame.