NMA president: Poor salary, insecurity reasons doctors leaving Nigeria in droves

Innocent Ujah, president of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that provisions are made to reverse the exodus of medical practitioners from the country.

He said the president needs to urgently direct appropriate agencies and ministries involved to hold a roundtable meeting where the lingering issues on brain drain in the health sector can be discussed.

Ujah listed poor work environment, insecurity, poor remuneration and equipment as problems bedevilling the health sector and causing practitioners to leave in their numbers to “safer and saner climes”.

The NMA president, who spoke on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Monday, also said the government should provide a viable and conducive environment for health practitioners, adding that it is the appropriate thing to do to curb the exodus of doctors.

“The issue of brain drain has been a serious issue to medical practitioners. A lot of Nigerians are going out of the country for many good reasons,” he said.

“We believe that the president needs to quickly direct the appropriate agencies and ministries to ensure that we have a roundtable meeting to be able to find out what could be done. 

“Many of the reasons are poor work environment, insecurity, poor remuneration and poor equipment to work with. I think these are some of the issues.

“Remuneration and environment in other countries like Europe, America and Saudi Arabia are far better than Nigeria. No doctor would want his children to be out of school, we want to have the best for our children.

“We believe that the appropriate thing to do is to have a conducive environment to work. We have lost over 20 of our doctors to COVID-19. 

“Many of our doctors are adopted and kidnapped; and one there is insecurity in the land as it is, it becomes very difficult for people to stay. 

“The best thing for us to do is to find solution to this hydra-headed monster. It is not too difficult to reverse but we need commitment, focus and clear understanding of the need to ensure that the few that we train stay back to render service to our people.

“Over 50 percent of our doctors are outside the country, we estimate that about 80 thousand Nigerians have been trained as doctors but only about 40 thousand that are at home.

“And these surely are not enough and adequate. Even where they are going to, their services are better than our own, they also have more doctors than we have.”