Labour minister Dr Ngige unperturbed by trained doctors leaving Nigeria as over 6,000 sit UK medical exam this year

NIGERIA'S labour and employment minister Dr Chris Ngige has said he remains unperturbed with the practice of locally-trained medical doctors rushing abroad to seek employment because they can be replaced with the surplus available.

In what is considered a huge brain drain crisis, doctors trained in Nigeria rush abroad, particularly to the UK and Canada in search of work where they get better remuneration packages and working conditions. In September 2018, it was revealed that there are 5,405 Nigerian-trained doctors and nurses working for the British National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

Nigerians are now said to constitute about 10% of the doctors working for the NHS and earlier this year, a whopping 6,244 Nigerian medical doctors sat for the UK's Plab examination that would enable them practice in the UK. However, Dr Ngige, himself a medical doctor, said he is not bothered about the development as the practice is not unique to Nigeria, as he himself was taught by Indians in secondary school.

Dr Ngige said: “I’m not worried because we have surplus doctors and if we have a surplus, we export. I was taught biology and chemistry by Indian teachers in my secondary school days.

“We have a surplus in the medical profession in our country. I can tell you this as it is my area, that we have excess. We have enough, more than enough, quote me.”

Refusing to accept that the practice would harm the Nigerian medical profession, Dr Ngige said if anything else, it would help these doctors become more skilled. He added that these doctors are getting exposed to world class training, so Nigeria is actually benefitting from it.

He added: “There is nothing wrong as they go out to sharpen their skills, earn money and send them back home here. Yes, we have foreign exchange earnings from them, not from oil.

“Those guys go there, they are better trained because of the facilities they have there and eventually, a couple of them who practise abroad set up medical centres back home. They offer Cat scans and MRI scans which even the government hospitals cannot maintain, so, I don’t see any loss. Brain drain will only be inimical when for instance neurosurgeons travel and we don’t have neurosurgeons here."

Nigeria currently has one doctor to the over 5,000 members of the population, which is way below the current global recommendation is one doctor to 600 citizens. According to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, there are about 72,000 nationally-registered doctors, with only 35,000 practising in-country.

Using World Health Organisation standards and recommendations, this means there is a deficit of over 260,000 doctors in Nigeria. Subsequently, a minimum of 10,605 new doctors needs to be recruited annually to meet global targets.