There are an estimated 10, 000 Nigerian medical doctors practicing in the United States. This number includes those who migrated from Nigeria as practicing doctors and those who went to school, graduated and practice medicine in the United States as Nigerian-Americans. For a country with as high health personnel deficit as Nigeria (there is one doctor to 6,400 patients in Nigeria as against the WHO benchmark of one doctor to 600 patients), 10,000 of its doctors practicing in one foreign country alone is an atrocious number, indeed! And that number becomes even more frightening when it is considered that there are additional 5-6,000 Nigerian doctors estimated to be practicing in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabi, UAE and other European and Middle East countries. In fact, as Dr. Julius Kpaduwa, a former President, Association of Nigerian Physicians in Americas, noted, most of the influential Nigerians who go to the US for medical treatment are actually treated by Nigerian doctors. When summed up, there would probably be more Nigerian doctors practicing outside its shores than are here—if recent media reports are anything to go by, there are, for instance, only 16,000 resident doctors in Nigeria, a country of 170million people. To meet the WHO benchmark, according to health experts, Nigeria needs some 283,333 doctors! This trend is very disturbing, to say the least. But, it also presents a paradox of sorts, which makes the whole situation even more worrisome: while one large pool of the nation’s qualified medical personnel is practicing outside the country, another large pool of qualified medical personnel within the country is jobless! The two are irreconcilable phenomena but that is the truth. These, to be sure, are very scary statistics, which call for urgent steps to be taken to address the trend and avoid a bleak future. Kpaduwa, a former Chairman of the Board of Imo State University Teaching Hospital, who spent over 40 years in the US as a practicing physician, said if nothing was done urgently to address the influx of Nigerian doctors into the US and other foreign countries, the number might increase in geometric progression in no distant time and lead to a major crisis in the healthcare delivery system in the country. What to do? The starting point is for government to invest massively in medical infrastructure so as to put in place modern facilities that constitute the principal reason young, talented medical doctors from the country emigrate to US and other countries to ply their trade, in the first place. The second is to pay doctors much better than they are at the moment and provide other incentives that would motivate medical doctors to practice in rural areas. The foregoing argument is underscored by the untoward situation in the northern part of the country. Even without Boko Haram, the healthcare delivery system in the north was anything but healthy. Now, the situation has become more desperate. Thus, while the national doctor-patient ratio is far below the UN benchmark, the situation in the Northern part of the country is much worse. But, generally, there is a disproportionate concentration of medical personnel in urban areas to the detriment of remote areas, despite the huge disease burden such as malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, among others, in rural communities. This, indeed, is a sorry situation for a country that is confronted with serious healthcare challenges and where a huge proportion of the population lacks access to qualified health personnel and is, therefore, at the mercy of quacks who masquerade as trained health workers. It is quite regrettable that despite the country’s resources, unemployment and migration have remained high for decades in the medical profession without a wellthought out government intervention strategy to stem the tide. This is unacceptable. There must be a way out of this quagmire. Governments must show a level of commitment to resuscitating the health care system through systematic funding arrangement. The problem is with the system. For, if the pay is comparative, medical facilities and other supporting infrastructure are up-to-date equipment, all of which add up to conducive environment for professional practice, some of these migrating compatriots would prefer to stay back and contribute their quota to the development of their nation in their own field of specialization. We urge the government and relevant agencies to evolve new strategies to deal with the situation. One of such strategies, we insist, is to put in place a pragmatic funding system for the health sector. Others include competitive salary structure for medical personnel; upgrading of medical facilities; establishment of high-class hospitals to accommodate highly-trained medical personnel and opportunities for young doctors to develop themselves. Importantly too, the Ministry of Health and the various governments must work out plans to shore up the manpower shortage in the health sector through mopping up the unemployed among qualified medical personnel in the country. Perhaps legislation is needed to correct this anomaly. It is either the process of employment is politicized or there is misplacement of priority or selfishness on the part of government officials.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 09:03:01 +0000
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