NIGERIAN Medical Association (NMA) officials have published fresh figures showing that here are only 24,000 actively licensed medical doctors in the country reducing the physician to patient ratio to the perilously low figure of one to 10,000.
Of late, Nigeria has suffered from a mass exodus of doctors, as poor working conditions has driven many of them abroad, particularly to the UK, where Nigerians are now the third largest group of doctors after India and Pakistan.
This exodus has stretched the Nigerian health sector to breaking point, making it impossible to meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) target of having one doctor to every 1,000 members of the population.
Speaking during a policy dialogue on the country’s health sector brain drain and its implications for sustainable child and family health service delivery, NMA president Dr Ojinmah Uche, said the situation was precarious. He delivered an address as the event organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in collaboration with the Partnership for Advancing Child and Family Health.
Dr Uche said: “In eight years, the US produced and acquired more doctors than Nigeria has produced from 1963-2021. The real shocker comes when you note that what was reflected by the US record were actively licensed physicians, not just those registered to practice.
“At this juncture, I leave to your imagination the number of actively licensed physicians in Nigeria relative to those registered to practice as stated above. Available data places it around 24,000 giving a horrible true ratio of approximately 1:10,000. This ratio of 1:10,000 is a national average but in most states, the situation is palpably worse.”
He further stated that the situation is worse in the northern part of the country where one doctor is available to treat 45,000 patients, disclosing that in rural areas, people travel more than 30 kilometres before accessing a healthcare facility. Popular destinations for Nigeria-trained doctors include the UK, US, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
Dr Uche added: “Only one doctor is incredibly available to treat 30, 000 patients in some states in the south, while states in the north are as worse as there is one doctor to 45,000 patients. In some rural areas, patients have to travel more than 30 kilometres from their abodes to get medical attention where available thus making access to healthcare a rarity.
“Based on WHO established minimum threshold, a country needs a mix of 23 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10,000 members of the population to deliver essential maternal and child health services. This explains why Nigeria ranks as one of the countries with the worst maternal and child mortality rates."
