Number of Nigerian-trained doctors working in the UK soars to over 10,000 according to NMA

THERE are currently10,296 Nigeria-trained doctors practising in the UK according to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) as the incessant brain drain that has seen physicians leave in large numbers continues unabated.

Amid a severe crisis in the Nigerian health sector, more and more doctors are leaving for abroad, with the UK among their top destinations. According to statistics published in the summer, at least three Nigerian doctors were licensed per day in June and July this year, despite moves by the Nigerian government to stop the exodus of doctors and health workers from the country.

In its latest data published on the matter yesterday, the NMA said Nigeria is now battling with its worst situation of brain drain in history. NMA national president, Dr Uche Ojinmah, raised concerns about the extent to which the problem has grown while speaking at the 2022 Physicians’ Week in Ibadan.

Dr Ojinmah said: “Currently, Nigeria has the third highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after India and Pakistan. While we are losing our human resources to health in geometric progression, lassa viral hemorrhagic fever, malaria, Covid-19, ebola, marburg, and so on, are still very much available in the face of worsening incidences of systemic hypertension with or without complications, diabetes mellitus with or without complications, osteoarthritis, and so on.

“We call on our governments at all levels, to quickly declare emergency action in Nigeria’s health sector for the sake of its citizens. Let me inform you all that a Nigerian doctor is poorly paid, overworked, lacks necessary work tools, and has become a target for kidnapping.

“We, as Nigerian doctors, have been taken from the lofty heights of nobility to nothingness by the neglect and possible disdain for the health sector by successive governments. The penchant of state governments for seizing or slashing our salaries and paying them piecemeal at their convenience, without interest, has become a subject of folklore and hence, cannot be allowed to continue.”

In Taraba State for instance, the ratio of doctors to patients is one to 10,000 according to Dr Bako Ali, he chairman of the state NMA chapter. While enumerating the challenges facing doctors in the state, Dr Bako noted that the state had yet to start the implementation of the agreed Conmess pay package for doctors on the state payroll.