Brain drain: Threat to Nigeria’s teeming population

Nigeria’s health sector remains one among the sectors where the controversies of labour crises have been very pronounced. Just as other sectors with similar circumstances, demands left unaddressed over the years have seen certain phenomena growing out of the course of the debilitating effects with unsavoury outcomes for the Country. While several other sectors may be suffering from defects arising from the inefficiencies of critical demands, the significance of the health sector would only demand that strains within the sector are well pronounced. Of several deficiencies affecting the sector, the phenomenon of brain-drain has been one of resonating concern. Going by the searchlight of cause and effect relations, the brain-drain phenomenon itself would be known to be an offshoot of several deficiencies which have borne the quest for Nigerian trained doctors resorting to seek greener pastures outside the Country.

One may not have the professionals to blame, since long time demands in the sector which have constituted deep-seated deficiencies have not been addressed as demanded from the Government. Hence, since where the health professionals hustle to land, are fortune lands where the systems have been well vitalised with working parameters to foster an appreciable career, anyone would want to opt for such green pastures. With good welfare packages and condition of services, within a system structured on state-of-the-art facilities with ease of operations to offer qualitative services, coupled with added value advantage of human capacity development, Nigerian doctors and other health practitioners have made the quest for greener pastures outside the Country their longing. Many have believed that scaling off the Country, is moving out of hell to paradise.

The outcome of the phenomenon is gradually reflecting the effects of desertion. The Country’s health sector is largely strained, suffering insufficient man power. One would wonder to sigh deeply, when consideration is given to what holds for the Country with the teeming population largely facing continuous migration of health workers, despite the over stretched huge deficits of health professionals and the accompanying constrains. It is known that the available health workers in the Country are now been overburdened and overlaboured, with the demands to cover up for the prevailing gaps, which realistically cannot be rationally borne by the existing few.

The doctor-to-patients ratio is known to be widening up with huge deficits. According to the ‘Women and Men report 2021,’ a total of 39,912 doctors were available in Nigeria as of 2017. The number of doctors increased to 44,021 in 2018, while reducing drastically to 24,640 in 2019. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the doctor-to-patient ratio at 1:600 standard, a 2021 report by the  Organisation revealed that for every 10,000 persons in Nigeria, there are four doctors available to treat or attend to them. It is estimated that at least 2,000 Nigerian trained medical doctors migrate from the Country yearly as no fewer than 5,400 are currently working with the British National Health Service in the United Kingdom.

A corresponding unreliability of the system has made room for another accompanying phenomenon of health tourism which has been typical for the privileged. Hence, while the privileged have it much quite good to seek alternatives of good taste of medical services of the vitalised health systems of Countries where their Governments have invested much to have a virile system of reliable resort, the less privileged have been left to grapple with the imbecilic system of Nigeria’s health sector. The plight have been one of troubles of the inefficiencies of the public health facilities, and the inability to afford the costly demands of the few private facilities fortified with appreciable services.

A lamentation from the Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, over the growing strains in the health sector, reflected how the phenomena are affecting smooth delivery of services to the public. The Chief Medical Director of the facility, Prof. Saad Ahmed, on Monday, 14th, February, 2022, following a meeting tailored towards a reform in the sector, consequently made appeals to the Government to give hospital managements the leverage to replace health workers that leave the service for greener pastures to foreclose breaking services.

“The issue of brain-drain is of serious concerns, which as the committee of CMDs, we were able to raise. I can tell you that the government has already set up a committee at the moment on Health Sector Reform to look at the health sector, to see areas where they need to reform in order to stop restiveness and also the brain-drain that we currently have. At the moment, that committee is calling for memorandum from members of the public and other stakeholders in order to help it in its assignment. Brain-drain is one of the serious challenges that we Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, are equally facing because I know the number of doctors, nurses, pharmacists that left this place within the last one year. Quite a number and I think it’s part of the things the reform committee is going to look at because we leaders of the health sector, should be given some leverages to replace those that are leaving in order not to break services. For example, let’s say you have one orthopaedic surgeon in your facility and all of a sudden, that person is leaving for the UK, US or wherever, and you have to start going through all processes of waivers here and there before you replace, meanwhile, there are patients that are there waiting.

“Health care workers burn out, let me put it that way and with all the brain-drains we have, the numbers keep depleting. We do have psycho-social support for staff, but beyond that, we are equally looking at how to increase the number of staffs so that everybody can have adequate time to take care of some other needs and all of that. Recently, we were able to recruit quite a number of staff and I believe that will reduce the pressure on the staff but it’s still not enough and since its a continued thing, you will continue to see how we can improve on the number in order to reach the optimal level,” he was quoted.

With the widening of the ratio of doctors-to-patients deficits, more Nigerians are exposed to hazards of an inefficient health system. A teeming population confronted with continuous migration of health workers outside the Country is threatened with the challenges of insufficient manpower in the health sector. As more Nigerians are exposed to the strains, resort to alternative means for healthcare services have been on the rise. The impacts of such may not bear good outcome for a healthy population needed to optimise the benefits of a teeming population. Situation now only demands that the Government arise from its slumber to addressing, with sensitivity, the clusters of deficiencies which have constituted grievances for health professionals, and as such, informing the desertion of their fathers’ land for foreign lands were their services are well appreciated and compensated.