The President of, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Prof. Bala Audu says the doctor-patient ratio in the country is worsening and far below the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendation.
Audu said this on Wednesday in Abuja, during a media conference on the State of the Nation’s Health Sector.
According to him, the doctor-patient ratio is about 1,000 per cent less than what WHO recommends.
He attributed the issue to the brain drain of healthcare workers, which is generally known as ‘Japa Syndrome.’
The reason for their departure, he said, includes inadequate equipment, worsening insecurity, poor working conditions, and poor salary structure.
“The doctor-patient ratio is about 1,000 per cent less than what the WHO recommended.
“Recently, there was a medical school that graduated its medical students, and they did a survey and asked the new graduates if they would stay or prefer to leave. Your guess is as good as mine.
“It’s something that is worsening, but it is something that we can mitigate,” Audu said.
He explained that the brain drain was significantly depleting the manpower for the health base in the country.
He added it was leaving a dwindling number of healthcare providers who have decided to remain behind to grapple with the challenges of still catering for an increasing number of Nigerians under more challenging circumstances.
The consequence of this, he said, was an excess workload upon those who have decided to remain behind.
“This excess workload, which we continue to try to provide quality healthcare at the best available standards, means that each and every healthcare provider in this country has to do a lot.
“They have to do more extra work to ensure that we deliver quality healthcare that is acceptable to all Nigerians.
The NMA President, however, noted that improving health workers’ well-being, providing a better working environment, and housing schemes for doctors would reverse the trend.
“The issues that will prevent doctors, and nurses from leaving this country include improving their well-being.
“It’s more than just their take-home package, their take-home package is important but they also need to have health care and educate their children.
“So if another person is providing a better opportunity, there is a tendency for them to take that option.”
Audu also said that it was important to improve the friendliness of the workplace environment.
According to him, there have been situations of attack on healthcare providers, especially by the patient’s relatives due to the unavailability of infrastructure at the facilities.
He, therefore, suggested that the facilities should be improved.
He commended the Federal Government’s strategy to address the shortage of healthcare workers in Nigeria by doubling the enrolment quota for medical, nursing and other health professional schools.
Audu, however, said that for the federal government to be able to achieve the feat successfully, it also needs to improve the facilities at the training schools.
“If you were previously admitting 200 medical students each year, now you want to admit 400 medical students each year.
“Then you have to double the accommodation and double the facilities for their training if you are to maintain the quality of their training.
“Housing is also one of the requirements, especially for internship training.
“By regulation, for you to have quality training for house officers, they must be housed within the hospital because they need to be available at all times.
“The residency training implies that they should live within the hospital, which means there has to be provision of accommodation for them.
“We train these people with a lot of money, this country invests so much in training every doctor, nurse, dentist, and other healthcare provider.
“But how many of them do we take up after they graduate, in spite of the challenges we have in terms of the demand for health?
“So if we don’t employ them early enough, somebody else will come and employ them and take them outside the country.”
He added that these areas of concern were being discussed with the government to ensure that they are improved so that the nation would continue to produce high-quality health professionals, for Nigeria and the rest of the world.
In May, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate said the enrolment quota in medical, nursing, and other health professional schools had been increased from 28,000 to 64,000 yearly.
At the time, he said that the increase was one of the steps in mitigating the brain drain in the health sector.
NAN
