Mass exodus of nurses and doctors calls for concern

The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) last week Friday said over 75,000 nurses and midwives left the country in five years to seek greener pastures.

The association also decried the insecurity situation in the country, particularly the rising cases of kidnap of its members for ransom, and violence against its members at the workplace while discharging their duties.

The President of the association, Michael Nnachi, dropped the bombshell while flagging off this year’s International Nurses Week at Abuja with the theme: ‘Our Nurses, Our Future.’

The International Nurses’ Day is celebrated annually around May 12 to commemorate the birthday of Florence Nightingale who is believed to have been the pathfinder in the nursing profession.

Nnachi said that due to poor wages and lack of decent work environments, over 75,000 Nurses and Midwives have migrated from Nigeria within a period of five years. This translates to 15,000 nurses leaving the country every year.

He said the reverberated effect of this unbridled migration is the acute shortage of nurses and midwives, especially in certain areas of specialisation and geographic region.

He said that other consequences of this worrying development is the increased chronic shortage of nursing personnel in the country leading to increased in workloads on nurses without an equivalent compensation, exposing them to more health hazards and compromising the quality of healthcare delivery.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had set a ratio of one nurse to four patients but due to their acute shortage in the country, the current ratio is put at one nurse to 80 patients. This revelation many have condemned and described as unacceptable.

This crisis in our health sector continues unabated with the medical doctors too leaving in droves abroad everyday for better wages that commensurate with the services rendered, good working condition, improved living conditions among others.

The ‘Women and Men report 2021’ was said to have quoted that a total of 39,912 doctors were available in Nigeria as of 2017. The number of doctors increased to 44,021 in 2018. But this number reduced drastically to 24,640 in 2019. That means in a year, around 20,000 had doctors migrated.

A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) was also said to have revealed that for every 10,000 persons in Nigeria, there are four doctors available to treat or attend to them whereas the WHO standard is one doctor to 600 patient s standard. It is reported that an average of 2,000 doctors leave the country in search of greener pastures every year.

The scenario painted above is really worrisome given the place of the health sector in our day to day engagement. It is often said that health is wealth as it is the basis to accomplish anything in life or what can a sick mind do?

This is the reason why those countries of the world attracting our nurses and medical doctors are sinking so much resources into their health care system so that their citizens can always receive the best of care.

These countries will not only provide all the necessary working tools but also ensured that the health workers are commensurately remunerated while their welfare and other benefits are not allowed to suffer.

This is unlike what is obtainable in Nigeria with our ill-equipped hospitals, problem of poor working condition, poor wages, lack of welfare packages, lack of basic infrastructure like power and many more.

Many times our healthworkers would have to shut down their services for months before the government will be forced to do something about their demands which in many cases are very genuine and will ultimately improve on the services rendered.

As a result of the lackadaisical attitude of the government to funding this critical sector, many in the past have said that our hospitals are now consulting rooms failing the purpose for which they have been created.

If the government is serious with its commitment to ensuring the well-being and wellness of its teeming citizens, now is the time to take a wholistic approach to reverse the mass exodus of these core healthworkers.

And this it can do and do well by prioritising this sector and fund it well such that all the challenges that had all along be posing serious threat to this sector could be tackled headlong.

The handlers of this country should know that if those countries they usually run to for medical treatment had left their health sector in comatose, if they had embezzled the humongous resources budgeted for the sector, if they had decided to be paying their workers the wages that did not commensurate with the jobs of life saving and so many hazard attached to it, definitely, many of them would have also found it difficult to find help when they needed one and might have paid dearly with their lives.

Time is now to chart a new course and be committed than ever before to make real access to qualitative and affordable healthcare to Nigerians.