The doctors’ exodus

It’s no longer news that Nigerian doctors are leaving the country in droves for greener pastures According to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), of the 75,000 Nigerian doctors registered with NMA, more than 33,000 have left the country, with 42,000 to take care an estimated 200 million people. Every problem has a solution if government is ready to head off a looming total collapse of the healthcare system. The first thing to do is declare a state of emergency in the health sector. Convene a summit involving stakeholders. There should be a health sector marshall plan.

It must be said that as long as doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are still under government health ministries, like civil servants, their wages will remain low compared to those abroad. A body to be called Nigeria Healthcare Workforce Agency (NHWA) should be created to take care of recruitment and remuneration of doctors and other allied healthcare workers. Each state and the federal capital territory should have theirs and it should be backed by law and have its budget. In addition, the budgetary allocation to health has to increase. The 6 per cent in almost two decades is a far cry from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendation of at least 15 percent. To show that government is not serious, in the 2020 budget it is even a paltry 4.14 per cent. That hardly inspires confidence.

Government at all levels must rank health as number one priority before security. Now, Nigerian doctors retire at 60 to go abroad to continue to work, where there is no age or sex discrimination. Government must as a matter of urgency consider increasing the retirement age of doctors to 70 years. And ditto for allied professionals. And when they retire they should earn their full salary until death as it is done for Nigerian professors. Whatever it will take to heal our sickly healthcare system must be done, and must be done quickly too, while the “resolve” of doctors at home can still hold out!

Dr Cosmas Odoemena

[email protected]

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