The Nigerian federal government has denied claims of insufficient medical personnel in the country owing to medical brain drain; and has affirmed that there are sufficient doctors in the nation.
This is coming after the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, had revealed at a press conference held in Abuja on Tuesday that the FG is attempting to find a replacement for doctors who were emigrating the country or resigning from their jobs.
Dr. Ehanire additionally said that there was no prohibition on hiring physicians and other medical professionals in the country.
“We have heard complaints of doctors who are now leaving the system but there are enough doctors in the system because we are producing up to 2,000 or 3,000 doctors every year in the country, and the number leaving is less than 1,000. It is just that the employment process needs to be smoothened,” Ehanire had said.
The minister then went on to reveal that the health ministry was working with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service to use a ‘One-for-One’ employment strategy so that if a doctor or nurse resigned from his/her workplace to emigrate abroad, another one is employed almost immediately.
The Nigerian Medical Association -NMA had in April this year, revealed that Nigeria had lost more than 9,000 medical doctors to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America between the years, 2016 and 2018. Professor Innocent Ujah, who is the President of the association disclosed this at the Maiden NMA Annual Lecture Series in Abuja.
According to the World Health Organisation -WHO’S research, Nigeria had a doctor-to-population ratio of about 1:4000-5000, which is very poor on the WHO recommended doctor-to-population ratio of 1:600.
