No fewer than 100 psychiatric doctors left the country in the last one year, the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria (APN) said yesterday.
The association’s President, Prof. Taiwo Obindo, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, decried that the psychiatric profession was the worst hit by the brain drain in the medical sector.
According to him, for every five psychiatric doctors trained in Nigeria, three leave the country to practice abroad. He lamented that the country had the requisite to train medical personnel, but lacked the ability to maintain, retain and sustain them.
The don noted that having a psychiatric qualification, experience or certificate was a visa on its own because ‘medical institutions abroad were looking for such personnel and are ready to offer them good/enticing remuneration’.
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He added: “Many practitioners in the psychiatric field have left the country to practice abroad. Though the exact figure may not be there, but I can categorically state that more than a 100 trained psychiatric doctors have left to practice abroad in the last one year.
“In fact, for every five psychiatric doctors trained in Nigeria, three leave the country to practice abroad.
“As I speak now, one psychiatric practitioner somewhere is leaving or planning to leave the country, it is that rampant and bad.”
Medical Director of Federal Neuro-psychiatric Hospital Yaba, Dr Olugbenga Owoeye, said the hospital is focused on training and retraining of more psychiatric doctors to fill the vacuum created by the brain drain.