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10,000 Medical Doctors Flee Nigeria for UK in last 7 yrs — NMA
The Kaduna Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has lamented that over 10,000 doctors have left Nigeria for greener pastures in the United Kingdom, in the last seven years, claiming that doctors in Kaduna State are the lowest paid.
During its ‘2022 Physicians’ Week,’ the NMA criticized the ongoing brain drain in the medical profession over the last seven years, despite fatal diseases in the country that demanded more medical professionals.
At a news conference to celebrate ‘Physicians’ Week,’ Dr. Madaki Sheyin, Chairman of the Kaduna State NMA, stated that a Nigerian doctor is underpaid, overworked, lacks required work tools, and has become a target for kidnappers.
“Nigerian doctors have been rendered unimportant by successive governments for inadequate attention to the health sector.
According to Vanguard, the theme of the one-week medical activities, “Nigeria’s Healthcare Delivery System and The 2023 Democratic Transition: A Time To Change The Narrative,” coincides with the most important upcoming event in Nigeria, while the sub-themes, “Mitigating The Impact Of Brain Drain On The Dwindling Human Resource For Health In Nigeria and Health Sector Reforms In The Face Of Emerging Public Health Threats,” were chosen to serve as a constant reminder to our governments that things are changing.
“The issue of progressive depletion of human resources for health cannot be over-emphasized. With the recent article from an Online Newspaper of 9th October 2022 titled “200 Nigerian Doctors Move to the UK in One Month’, the fact that checks on the website of the General Medical Council, GMC, the body which licenses and maintains the official register of medical practitioners in the UK, showed that the GMC licensed at least 200 Nigerian-trained doctors between August 31, 2022, and September 30, 2022, was revealed.
“The statistics also showed that between January 1, 2022, and September 30, 2022, about 1,307 doctors trained in Nigeria were licensed in the UK as Nigeria continues to battle one of the worst situations of brain drain in its history. Overall, 10,296 doctors who obtained their degrees in Nigeria currently practice in the UK.
The doctors, therefore, appealed to the Kaduna state government to immediately implement the report of the Committee on Review of Medical Doctors and other health workers’ salaries in Kaduna State and also domesticate the newly approved hazard allowance for doctors.
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Meanwhile, the Chairman, of NMA, Ekiti State Branch, Dr. Niyi Rosiji, lamented that the brain drain is killing the health sector in the state, saying urgent steps needed to be taken by the state government to redress the drift.
Rosiji, who said the primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals in the state were grossly short of medical doctors, urged the state government to urgently address the backlog of salaries and allowances owed to doctors, implement hazard allowance and ensure upward review of doctors’ pay.
He said, “Every secondary health center and specialist hospital in Ekiti should have at least nine doctors but the highest we have is two per hospital. We are supposed to have 276 doctors but we have just 85. How do you expect us to not have high mortality?
“We need about 195 doctors to run the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, but we only have 95. Why should people blame doctors for the monsters the government has created? For the primary, we need 32 doctors, but there are only 12 and four of them will retire soon,” Rosiji said.