Following a recent brain drain, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) claims that only 24, 000 currently licensed physicians are still practicing in the nation.
During a policy dialogue on Nigeria’s health sector brain drain and its implications for sustainable child and family health service delivery, NMA President Ojinmah Uche revealed that the country’s over 200 million people are being cared for by the country’s 24,000 currently licensed doctors.
Ojinmah noted that based on the World Health Organization established minimum threshold, a country needs a combination of 23 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 population to provide essential maternal and child health services.
Ojinmah was speaking at the event hosted by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in collaboration with the Partnership for Advancing Child and Family Health at Scale project of the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC).
He added;
“Only one doctor is incredibly available to treat 30,000 patients in some states in the South; while states in the North are as worse as one doctor to 45,000 patients. In some rural areas, patients have to travel more than 30 kilometers from their abodes to get medical attention where available thus Nigeria making access to healthcare a rarity.”
Ojinmah further attributed the brain drain to a lack of support for the healthcare industry, stressful medical training, a lack of home jobs, trouble finding work, inadequate pay, unneeded and harmful inter-professional rivalry, and insecurity, among other factors.
