The Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Abuja, Prof. Mahmud Raji, says at least 500 healthcare workers, mostly doctors, had left its services for overseas in the last two years.
Raji spoke on Sunday in Abuja, adducing reasons for the healthcare workers’ action.
According to the National Institutes of Health, “For the physicians with the intention to emigrate from Nigeria, poor remuneration (91.3%) is the commonest reported reason, followed by rising insecurity in the country (79.8%), having to do extra work without commensurate pay (61.8%) and lack of diagnostic equipment and facilities (61.8%).”
Raji lamented that the way the healthcare workers leave hurts the healthcare sector and that it is disheartening for hospital administrators.
“The most pitiful and worrisome aspect of it is the amount of money the Nigerian government has invested into each of these individuals, either as doctors, physiotherapists, nurses, pharmacists, etc.”
He confessed migration has become an “everyday experience” for him as an administrator, saying that, on the average, he about two or three files of professionals wishing to resign from the hospital.”
The CMD said, contrary to popular belief, experienced mid-level healthcare workers also migrate in droves, noting that when that happens, they simply take flight with the years of on-the-job experience that they should have passed to young, inexperienced healthcare professionals.
“Sometimes, not only young people; some people have actually gone through the ranks with lots of experience that they could teach other people. So, Nigeria is losing so much, painfully.
“Here, we have lost a number of quite senior doctors, especially the middle cadre doctors, and the very young ones.
“Nurses have also left from the middle cadre and the younger ones. Some of our medical engineers are hotcakes outside and have left.
“I must tell you, Nigeria trains people so much, Nigerian graduates and staff are well sought after, all over,” he declared.
He agreed that poor remuneration and lack of job satisfaction were some of the reasons cited by those who had signified their intention to migrate.
The CMD also confessed that the necessary equipment needed to work were not there and that it is a disincentive for any healthcare worker.
He said the current administration was working to resuscitate the health sector, noting,
“From what we can all see, in a couple of years, we should be able to attract those who had travelled to return, while we retain the ones that are here.”
