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“Nigeria is producing about 3,000 doctors every year from our universities, about 800 return from overseas, and about 1,000 are going out. So, in reality, there is a net balance of doctors, but the employment rare is not commensurate.”
The Federal Government has attributed Nigeria’s healthcare sector failure to the mass exodus of the most knowledgeable and highly trained doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire disclosed this at the President Muhammadu Buhari Scorecard in the health sector organised by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in Abuja.
Ehanire further explained that the federal government cannot stop the mass exodus of health professionals but is trying to remedy it by speeding up the training of young practitioners.
“A new mechanism is being set up now to engage Nigerian doctors, nurses and pharmacists in diaspora and connect them with universities and hospitals in Nigeria to transfer knowledge”.
“Workforce mobility is global, doctors and nurses are moving everywhere, so we should not just knock ourselves.
“Where we suffer is that the highly trained ones are the ones who leave, those who have the experience, who have acquired most of the knowledge and confidence in healthcare management, that’s where we suffer and it takes time to train new people to take their place”.
Ehanire also stated that government is doing everything possible to improve the renumeration and conditions of service for health practitioners.
“We are looking to introduce a better form of performance based renumeration, so that doctors will receive according to the work they do. A lot of doctors and nurses don’t feel that they are properly rewarded.”
He further noted Nigeria still has a significant number of unemployed doctors, explaining that some institutions prefer to engage nurses or community health workers because they are cheaper than doctors.
“Nigeria is producing about 3,000 doctors every year from our universities, about 800 return from overseas, and about 1,000 are going out. So, in reality, there is a net balance of doctors, but the employment rare is not commensurate.”
The minister further raised concerns that Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the country are not functional despite the fact that at least one PHC per ward gets direct funding through the Decentralised Facility approach.
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“This is exacerbating health burdens in the country such as maternal mortality, mother-to-child transmission of HIV because mothers are missing out on Antenatal Care Services, among others”.
Meanwhile, Ehanire while speaking on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari since 2015, he said the successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the biggest achievements in the health sector, during which the country strengthened public health security.
He also enthused that the new National Health Insurance Law signed by the President will boost access to healthcare and reduce out of pocket payment from 72 percent to 40 percent.
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