By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
President Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Uche Rowland Ojinmah has said that many qualified doctors in Nigeria are still not employed in spite of the brain drain in the health sector.
Speaking on the exodus of Nigerian medical practitioners from the country for greener pastures abroad, the NMA President noted that even based on the fact that doctors are leaving, some are still not employed, saying that there is a story of one-for-one policy that they will start replacing those that leave immediately.
He added that the policy has been on the drawing board for months and nothing is happening.
Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson, a lawmaker from Lagos, in a bill he recently sponsored proposing a mandatory five-year work in Nigeria by Nigerian doctors before being given a full practicing licence and the bill had passed the second reading in the House of Representatives.
The NMA President on Wednesday while appearing on Channels Television’s programme, Politics Today, explained that there were still many doctors unemployed in the country notwithstanding the high number of medical practitioners leaving the country.
Ojinmah stated, “Even based on the fact that doctors are leaving, some are still not employed and there is a story of one-for-one policy that they will start replacing those that leave immediately. Meanwhile, the policy has been on the drawing board for months and nothing is happening.”
He stressed that jobs and good remuneration should be given to the many doctors still seeking employment in the country, urging government not to cut the head off to cure a headache.
According to him, about 13,609 Nigerian doctors have migrated to the UK alone in the past eight years which is third behind Pakistan and India in search of greener pastures.
He explained that Nigerian doctor’s to patient ratio stands at one doctor to 5,000 patients, lamenting that it is far beyond the World Health Organisation’s recommended ratio of one doctor to 600 patients.
Dr Ojinma added that doctors leave the country in droves saying that the ratio in rural areas and conflict zones is far worse that the doctors could bear.
According to him, when one talks of the rural areas, one may be talking about one to 9,000 patients and in areas with banditry and terrorism, it may be one in 20,000 patients or more.
He argued that the policy being suggested by the National Assembly is discriminatory, lamenting that the logic being presented [on the floor of the House] in support of the bill does not make sense.
He explained that the first push factor is poverty as a newly trained doctor [abroad] is earning about £40,000 (about N22m at official exchange rate) per annum while our own is earning about N3million to N3.6million per annum, saying that a fresh doctor in Nigeria earns in a year what a fresh doctor in the UK earns in a month.
He also blamed the taxation policy in Nigeria which he said had been heavy on the doctors, saying that they (doctors) are treated like they are common and now they are crying that they should be held hostage.
