Less than 30,000 doctors practising in Nigeria, more planning to leave, says NMA

The Nigerian Medical Association has lamented the perennial brain drain in the country’s health sector.

The association noted that the number of doctors practising in the country currently is around 30,000 making the doctor-patient ratio 1 to 5,000.

Although, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, recently said Nigeria has a sufficient number of medical doctors despite the brain drain.

The minister during a briefing on Tuesday stated that there were enough medical doctors in the country and that the number of doctors produced annually exceeds the number leaving the country.

But the NMA and other stakeholders in the health sector said the claim by the minister was far from the truth.

The NMA insisted that just about 30,000 medical doctors were currently practising in Nigeria out of the about 80,000 registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria from 1960 to date.

The NMA also revealed that the country currently has a doctor-to-patient ratio of one doctor to 4000-5000 patients instead of the one doctor to 600 patient ratio recommended by the World Health Organisation.

It was gathered that the spate of brain drain in the health sector which has led to a shortage of manpower with attendant burnout, payment of hazard allowance, and outstanding Medical Residency Training Fund, was part of the reasons the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors issued a two-week ultimatum to the federal government to address or it would embark on industrial action.

Findings also revealed that many doctors in the country continue to troop to recruitment interviews or centres by foreign governments to leave the country for greener pastures.

A large number of those seeking to leave the country are consultants with different specialties in the field of medicine, thereby causing manpower shortages in the health facilities.

The minister of health had said, “At the moment we have heard complaints of doctors who are now leaving the system but there are actually enough doctors in the system in the country 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.”

He said the ministry was working with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to have a one-for-one policy of employment.

“So if one doctor resigns today and goes abroad, we will employ one doctor. If it is one nurse, we replace it with one nurse. So, if we adopt a one-for-one replacement we are not likely to have a shortage.

The President of NMA, Dr Uche Ojinmah, however said there are only 20, 000 to 30,000 medical doctors currently practising in Nigeria out of the about 80,000 registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria since 1960 to date.

He said that Nigeria has a doctor-to-patient ratio of one doctor to 4000-5000 patients instead of the one doctor to 600 patient ratio recommended by the World Health Organisation.

He said out of the about 80,000 on the MDCN register since inception some have died, retired, joined politics, emigrated, or are no longer practising, or had joined other careers.

He said if there were enough doctors in the country, primary health care centres in the country would not have been empty of doctors.