NMA repeats health sector collapse warning as Nigerian doctors in UK increase to 10,296

NMA repeats health sector collapse warning, citing poor workers’ welfare, lack infrastructure and facilities

By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor

Nigerian doctors practising in the United Kingdom have increased to 10,296 at a time their native country faces its worst medical sector brain drain, as Muhammadu Buhari keeps on pretending to busy but actually ignoring problems.

Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) National President Uche Ojinmah gave the figure at the 2022 Physicians’ Week in Ibadan, which was also marked in Jalingo, Ekiti, and other state capitals to highlight government neglect of the health sector.

“Currently, Nigeria has the third highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after India and Pakistan,” said Ojinmah, represented by NMA Oyo Chairman Wale Lasisi.

“While we are losing our human resources for health in geometric progression, Lassa Viral Hemorrhagic fever, Malaria, COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, and so on, are still very much available in the face of worsening incidences of systemic hypertension with or without complications, diabetes mellitus with or without complications, osteoarthritis, and so on.

“We call on our governments at all levels, to quickly declare emergency action in Nigeria’s health sector for the sake of its citizens.”

Ojinmah decried the poor welfare of medical workers and the lack of infrastructure and facilities, according to The PUNCH.

“Let me inform you all that a Nigerian doctor is poorly paid, overworked, lacks necessary work tools, and has become a target for kidnapping.

“We, as Nigerian doctors, have been taken from the lofty heights of nobility to nothingness by the neglect and possible disdain for the health sector by successive governments.

“The penchant of state governments for seizing or slashing our salaries and paying them piecemeal at their convenience, without interest, has become a subject of folklore and, hence, cannot be allowed to continue.”

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Taraba has doctor-patient ratio of 1:10,000

Taraba NMA Chairman Bako Ali decried the ratio of doctor to patients in the state, which he put at 1:10,000 patients.

He disclosed this in Jalingo where he listed the challenges facing doctors in the state which he said has not implemented CONMESS salary scale for public sector doctors.

“Another challenge is that the state is yet to start payment of hazard allowance for doctors practising in Taraba State and they are now moving to federal hospitals while those in the federal service are moving abroad over poor remuneration and conditions of service.

“The poor state of facilities in most of the state hospitals is also discouraging even though the Wukari, Gembu, and Bambur General Hospitals are receiving attention by the present administration,” he said.

Ekiti hospitals in dire shortage of doctors

Ekiti NMA Chairman Niyi Rosiji lamented brain drain in public hospitals and requested urgent steps be taken by the state government to redress the problem.

Rosiji said primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals are grossly short of doctors and urged the government to urgently pay the backlog of salaries and allowances of doctors, implement hazard allowance, and raise doctors’ pay.

He added: “Every secondary health centre and specialist hospital in Ekiti should have at least nine doctors but the highest we have is two per hospital.

“We are supposed to have 276 doctors but we have just 85. How do you expect us to not have high mortality?

“We need about 195 doctors to run the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, but we only have 95. Why should people blame doctors for the monsters the government has created?

“For the primary, we need 32 doctors, but there are only 12 and four of them will retire soon.”