Brain drain in health sector
By Sun News Publishing
Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Federal Ministry of Health recently released worrisome figures on the number of health professionals who have migrated out of the country in search of better jobs in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Saudi Arabia.

The Minister of State for Health, Mrs. Tayo Alao, in an address to journalists on the occasion of the World Health Day, bemoaned the fact that 10,000 of Nigeria’s 35,000 registered medical doctors had, as at July 2003, left the country in search of better employment abroad.
Twenty per cent of the nation’s 10,364 registered pharmacists migrated abroad or to other professions during the same period while figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria indicated that an increasing number of registered nurses were leaving our shores to work in foreign countries.

The number of nurses who left the country increased from 3, 980 in 2001 to 5,937 in 2002. The total number of registered Environmental Health Officers was put at 7,500 for a Nigerian population of about 150 million people.

More current figures on the extent of the brain drain in the health sector between July 2003 and now, when they are compiled, are not likely to indicate an abatement in the exodus of health personnel as the conditions that informed their emigration have not been addressed.

The minister, while lamenting the unwholesome trend, blamed developed countries for the unfortunate situation and identified lack of motivation, improper placement, inadequate training opportunities, poor remuneration and unavailability of appropriate medical equipment and infrastructure in Nigeria as major factors responsible for the brain drain.

Nigeria, she disclosed, is set to tackle the problem through implementation of the Commonwealth Code of Practice which provides guidelines for the international recruitment of health workers in a manner that takes into consideration the impact of such recruitment on services in the source country.

The exodus of health professionals from the country, with its attendant deleterious effect on our health sector, is regrettable, but not surprising. It is the inevitable consequence of years of crass neglect of the sector manifested in dilapidated infrastructure, obsolete equipment in hospitals, poor pay and generally unbearable working conditions of health workers.

This sad state of affairs, which has seen about one-third of our medical doctors emigrating, must not be allowed to persist as it can only portend grave danger for our people, and negatively impact on our already unacceptably high mortality statistics.

Since the problems responsible for this unwelcome emigration are well known to the Federal Ministry of Health, it behoves the authorities to conscientiously address them if we are to make practising in Nigerian medical institutions attractive.

The decision of the federal government to regulate the emigration of health workers through the implementation of the Commonwealth Code of Practice will not address the reasons why our health personnel are always only too happy to leave the country to work abroad.

This problem will be best addressed by tackling it at its roots, which is the poor working environment of not only medical personnel, but all workers in most sectors of the economy.
The federal government must put deliberate measures in place to stem the tide of emigration. There should be a significant improvement in medical infrastructure and equipment, and the remuneration and working conditions of medical personnel.

The training of medical personnel should also be encouraged and given every necessary attention, to meet the need of the local population and the growing international demand.