…NMA fears more now practice abroad than at home
Out of the 87,000 registered doctors on the Nigerian Medical Association’s register, only 35,000 are actively practising in the country, spelling danger for a health sector already suffering poor funding, unmotivated workforce and lack of medical facilities.
“Since inception, I mean since when the register was opened, we have above 87,000 registered doctors but those actively practicing are about 35,000,” Mike Ogorima, president of Nigerian Medical Association, tells BDSUNDAY.
Ogorima said the association was uncertain about the number of those practising abroad since some of the names on the register could either be dead or have stopped practice. He alluded to the fact that a serious crisis was imminent considering the huge number of doctors going to practice abroad.
It gets worse. Nigeria with a population of over 170 million has only 35,000 registered doctors. Of this figure, 70 percent practise in urban areas where only 30 percent of the populace lives.
The implication of this is that Nigeria’s doctor-patient ratio is among the worst in the world currently hovering above 50,000 patients to one doctor rather than recommended 1:600 ratio. This limits access to quality healthcare to millions of Nigerians.
Nigeria needs more than 237,000 medical doctors to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) standard doctor-patient ratio but each year Nigeria’s universities produce less than 3,000 doctors. Experts say the vast majority of these graduates seek greener pastures abroad.
According to Folashade Ogunsola, a professor of medicine and chairman, Association of Colleges of Medicine of Nigeria, it will take the country 100 years to have all the doctors it needs to meet WHO requirement assuming none travels abroad.
“For those that travel abroad to practice, we have five thousand in United State of America (USA), three thousand in United Kingdom (UK) and others scattered all over the world. There is no country in the world that you will not find one or two Nigerian doctors,” Ogorima said.
Health practitioners attribute this situation to a myriad of factors prominent of which is poor funding of the sector, lack of adequate facilities, poor remuneration of doctors and lack of well thought-out policies from government.
Nigeria’s 2017 budget allocated a paltry N304 billion or 4 percent to the health sector contrary to the recommended 15 percent by African Union countries in the 2001 Abuja declaration which commits member nations to improve national health budgets.
“Some doctors travel abroad because they want to practice were they have facilities to practice what they have learnt and in foreign countries doctors are treated better,” said Omojowolo Olubunmi, president, Association of Resident Doctors, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH-ARD) chapter.
Ogorima said, “The lowest or minimum pay for a fresh medical doctor graduate earn range between N160,000 to N170,000 per annum including what we call duty which is call excess work done beyond 4pm in a federal hospital but in a state hospital it depends on their salary scale because there is no uniformity in private hospital it could be bit lower than that between N100,000 to N120,000.”
Doyin Odubanjo, a public health expert based in Lagos said the days when doctors are counted among the middle class is over. He also condemned the working conditions and remuneration of doctors.
“What is the state of you hospital as a whole, what is the hospital look like, do they have comfortable doctors homes, you go down to do they have comfortable equipment to work with, the diagnose tools, many are not working,” said Odubanjo.
Experts say Nigeria should overhaul the entire health sector and prioritise in yearly expenditure plans. This should also include better remuneration and welfare package for doctors.
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