LEADERSHIP
As the emigration of Nigeria young professionals, popularly referred to as brain drain and informally called ‘japa’ syndrome, continues to take a toll on Nigeria’s health system, the few doctors left to cater for the country’s teeming population are overstretched and fatigued as they now work far longer hours that is recommended for them, LEADERSHIP Weekend checks have revealed.
The result is that their own health deteriorates and they make mistakes in diagnosis and treatment, in addition to trying to flee the country as well due to poor working conditions.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a ratio of one doctor to 600 population (1:600) and six to eight working hours a day, 23 units of call in a month for a doctor.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, based on civil service guidelines, a doctor is supposed to have 40 units of call, which means a doctor is not supposed to work beyond 80 hours in a month, but they actually work about four times more hours.
The president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Dele Abdullahi, told LEADERSHIP Weekend that due to manpower shortages in hospitals, most doctors now do alternate days of call duty.
“That means within one week, we have already exhausted the 80 hours prescribed for us (for a month), because if I am doing alternate day calls, that means I am doing 24-hour work, like three to four days in seven days, and that is what we currently have,” he said.
Quoting the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Abdullahi said Nigeria has the ratio of one doctor to 10, 000 population as opposed to one doctor to 600 that the WHO recommended.
“So if you have one doctor per 10,000 population, it means that the doctor will have to do more work,” he said.
