Nigerian healthcare is witnessing one of the largest brain drains in decades and the reason is not far fetched. Medical practitioners have to deal with a host of issues not limited to unfavourable working conditions, underemployment, and limited alternatives, among other things. They live vicariously through their peers abroad, whose drive to encourage anyone who cares to listen to dump practice in Nigeria and migrate is as riveting as the thought to execute. While this is a general issue in the country at the moment, this deficit quite significantly impacts an already underfunded and under-equipped sector of the economy.
As of 2019, the expenditure on health in Nigeria was 3.03% of the country’s GDP – a decrease from the previous 10 years which averaged 3.74% of GDP – and well below the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended level of 15% of the annual budget.
Although much has been made of the brain-drain of the Nigerian medical sector to the United Kingdom and Canada especially, Nigeria is also experiencing a dearth in pharmaceutical practices. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the acceptable and recommended ratio of Pharmacists to the population is one Pharmacist to 2000 of the population, Nigeria currently operates a 1.23 Pharmacist to 24,668 of the population whereas Kenya has a 0.19 Pharmacists to every 964 of its population. A Field Annual Report of 2021 revealed that 1,708 Pharmacists graduated to join Nigeria’s health force but with a population of nearly 210 million, this is a drop in the ocean.
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Another analysis of the pharmacy workforce in Nigeria was conducted from 2011 to 2016 in order to gain insight on capacity and to inform pharmacy workforce planning and policy development in the country, the data revealed that there were 21,892 registered pharmacists, with only 59% in active professional practice. Over the five years studied, there was an increase in the number of pharmacists (0.53–0.66) and new pharmacy graduates per year (0.062–0.083) per 10,000 population; however, the overall density remained significantly low. Nigeria simply needs to train more pharmacists.
World over, Nigerians are recognised for their achievements in a variety of fields. Reports suggest that two out of every five medical professionals in the United States are of Nigerian descent. Despite this, there are numerous challenges in ensuring that all learners have access to basic education locally. Or more broadly, ensuring that more students progress to tertiary levels of education. Nigeria needs more percentages of its students to become STEM literate; to do this, it must develop measures to make STEM learning relevant and applicable to solving our problems. With a 2.5% annual population growth, Nigeria needs to make the sector attractive to younger people.
Nigeria may not be closing in on the pharmacists’ deficit anytime soon given the annual churn of graduating pharmacists but with more health tech solutions like Shelf Life – Africa’s largest digitised pharmaceutical subscription service with footprints in Kwara, Kaduna, Abuja, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Edo, Delta and Rivers states – there is light at the end of the tunnel. Reports show that the private sector accounts for 58% of the delivery of health services, including child health services and pharmacies accounting for 40% of the private health sector. This suggests that healthtech might be providing a solution to Nigeria’s shortage of pharmacists.
