The President of the World Medical Association, Osahon Enabulele, highlighted that Nigeria must recruit more than 250,000 medical doctors to align with the doctor-to-patient ratio recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). He shared this insight during a public lecture hosted by the Federated Chapel of the Edo Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) over the weekend.
Enabulele said Nigeria has less than 100,000 doctors, which he said was grossly inadequate to meet the doctor-patient ratio.
He said: “There is less than 100,000 registered doctor in Nigeria. Let’s say it is 98,000 doctors according to the last update. Out of these 98,000, only 50,000 are practicing in Nigeria.
“The present situation, by international standards, a doctor should be assigned to less than 600 patients. But in Nigeria’s case, a doctor attends to over 3,000.
“So Nigeria needs over 250,000 doctors to cope with the current reality.”
Enabulele lamented that countries like Rwanda and others have fulfilled the resolution of the Abuja Accord in 2001, where African countries decided to dedicate 15 percent of their budgets to healthcare provision.
Enabulele said: “While some countries are planning to surpass this, Nigeria is still around five percent for healthcare.”
He identified lack of funds, inadequate infrastructure, unemployment, workplace conditions, remuneration, brain drain, economy, inflation, and ineffective healthcare among others, as a problem facing Nigeria’s health system.
He said: ‘There is a need to establish a Health Service Commission that would better administer the health system and drive medical manpower, training, best human resources and develop plans among others.”
In her welcome address, the Chairman of Federated Chapel, Onyenweli Mercy said: “The “japa” syndrome is catching like wildfire.
“Everywhere you turn you hear tales of Nigerians leaving their motherland in droves to seek greener pastures in other countries irrespective of educational status, gender, age, and so on.
“The popular refrain is ‘Anywhere will do so long as I am not stuck in Nigeria’.
“In consonance with the charter of our noble profession, the Federated Chapel Executive deemed it necessary to expand our platform for discussions by making it a little bit more progressive in terms of evoking the feeling of patriotism and causing a paradigm shift in the process of decision-making for the greater benefit of our people.”
