By Olabisi Deji-Folutile
Some things are happening in Nigeria now that we seem to ignore because of the frenzy and euphoria of political activities around us. The country is probably experiencing one of the worst brain – drain in its history, yet it seems nothing is amiss. As usual, our leaders are not alarmed and the citizenry themselves appear unbothered by the humongous problem. The only thing that matters now is politics. While some are plotting to take over power at all levels of government, others are devising means of retaining it by all means. To make matters worse, some impoverished Nigerians don’t mind fighting and killing themselves for their oppressors to thrive.
The United Kingdom’s General Medical Council reportedly licensed fresh 91 Nigerian-trained doctors within15 days in October, 2022. This brought the total number of Nigerian-trained doctors in the UK to 10,387 as of October 25. Note that this figure is for the UK alone. As serious as this issue is, it is not one of those kept on the front burner in our polity. Perhaps, the only people complaining are the medical doctors themselves. Unfortunately, nobody is interested in their lamentation.
According to the Nigerian Medical Association, there are 5,210 associate specialists, 2,318 doctors in training, 1,837 general practitioners, and 1,273 specialists among the 10,387 doctors that relocated to the UK in recent times. Apart from doctors, other categories of health workers are said to have migrated. Nigeria currently has the third-highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after India and Pakistan.
The National President of the Medical and Dental Consultant Association of Nigeria, Dr Victor Makanjuola, said over 500 consultants left the services of government hospitals for practice abroad in the last two years. He explained that government hospitals are consultant-led practices in line with the global standard. Since those likely to leave are the younger ones, and those in their 50s, he is of the view that Nigeria should work on retaining both the young and the older consultants to prevent being left with a system without consultants.
On its part, the NMA has warned that at the rate Nigerian doctors are leaving the country, Nigeria may end up importing doctors in the future. Just as the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) reminds us that six out of 10 doctors in Nigeria plan to leave the country.
Basically, the signs that Nigeria is heading for trouble are here for those who care to see. Already, the number of doctors writing postgraduate fellowship exams has fallen drastically. During its last exam, only four of the centres of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN) across the nation were used for the computer-based postgraduate fellowship examinations due to what was described as a “marked decline” in applications for the fellowship. We have heard of cases where resident doctors billed to go on leave in public hospitals are asked to suspend their vacation due to severe shortage of manpower.
Those who patronise government hospitals can easily attest to the dwindling quality of care in these facilities. Not because the medical personnel is cruel, but because they are working under intense pressure. I was at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital a few weeks back and I had a glimpse of what health care in Nigeria has become. Patients were practically rejected for lack of space.
At first, I thought lack of bed space meant no beds for patients only to later realise that there were actually bed spaces but the problem was inadequate manpower. In the female ward that I visited, I saw only two nurses on duty. And if you think medical personnel should be interested in keeping their patients alive, that is obviously not the case here. You could see that these ones were too eager to see their patients, especially those with terminal illnesses, expire. The level of care for such patients was almost zero. The few consultants available were overbooked. Many of them were always moving from one private hospital to the other.
Unfortunately, despite these glaring problems, those who should know in government are saying all is well. For example, our Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire believes Nigeria has enough medical doctors. To him, the number of doctors leaving Nigeria is less than 1,000 and Nigeria produces up to 2,000 or 3,000 doctors every year. Obviously, he is not the only one living in this fool’s paradise. His predecessor in office Isaac Adewole said the same thing in 2018. […]
