Nigeria's health care services have declined for years as the ratio of available health care workers fail to match the total burden of sick persons to manage. What is even more daunting is that on a yearly basis, Nigerian doctors leave the country to seek greener pastures elsewhere, further worsening the ratio.
Nigeria's health care services have declined for years as the ratio of available health care workers fail to match the total burden of sick persons to manage. What is even more daunting is that on a yearly basis, Nigerian doctors leave the country to seek greener pastures elsewhere, further worsening the ratio.
This situation has been attibutable to the deplorable working conditions that doctors face regularly, the lack of proper remuneration, amongst others. In a published interview, the President of the Nigerian Medical Association stated that doctors are leaving mainly due to the "poor work environment, insecurity, poor remuneration and poor equipment to work with."
A cursory look at the budget allocation to the Health sector for the past 11 years according to the Budget Office of the Federation reveals that the Federal Government allocated N3.5 trillion to the sector within the period. Of the funds, the Federal Ministry of Health got N2.9 trillion for recurrent and N640 billion for capital expenditures.
Although this may look like a large figure, it is very little compared to what was agreed during the African Union's 2001 Declaration in Abuja, where member states pledged to allocate at least 15% of their annual budget to improve the health sector. Nigeria is yet to meet that quota to date.
In this article, we shall look at the yearly figures of doctors leaving Nigeria for the United Kingdom according to data provided by the General Medical Council Of Britain.
The Data
According to the report, a total of 6,058 have left Nigeria to seek opportunities in the U.K. from 2015 to 2022, with the highest number of migrants recorded in 2019.
In 2015, 233 doctors left for the UK; in 2016, 279 left; in 2017,475 left; in 2018; 852 left, 2019, 1347 left, in 2020, 833 doctors left, in 2021, 932 doctors left, and in 2022 1,107 left.
Takeaway
It is pertinent that the Nigerian government does much more to ensure they do not lose more doctors to other countries, as the situation back home is already dire. According to the Nigerian Medical Association, the current doctor-to-patient ratio is one doctor to 4000-5000 patients, which is less than sufficient to cater to its 200 million plus citizens.
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