With the frightening figure of a meagre 24,000 licensed medical doctors to a population of 218 million people in Nigeria, as against the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation of 1:600 there is cause for serious concern. And of course, urgent action is needed to reverse the drift to mass, untreated ill-health and their resultant deaths. So dire the situation has degenerated into that recently Governor Bala Muhammed of Bauchi State raised an alarm that the number of doctors in his state has drastically depleted from 3,000 to 100 over the past months because thousands of them have relocated to foreign lands in search of greener pastures!

He made this known recently in a media interview, soon after the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja with several of his colleagues in attendance. The focus of the meeting was the need for members to brainstorm and come up with sustainable measures to stem the ever-rising tide of the Japa syndrome. That is, of medical doctors, nurses and other health workers from Nigeria. But Muhammed was not the only governor feeling the pinch and pains of the deplorably low medical doctors to patients’ ratio.

While Lagos State that boasts of the highest number has 2,561 medical doctors, Rivers and Kaduna have 917 and 711 respectively. Unfortunately however, states such as Zamfara, Adamawa and Niger have as low as 1:38,900, 1:35,600 and 1:31,600 doctors to population in that order, as provided by NewswireNGR online platform on April 24, 2023. In fact, according to the President of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Uche Ojinmah: “This has led to serious manpower crises in most healthcare facilities in the country.”

Going further, he explained that the health workers were being overstretched, leading to serious distortion in the already poor doctor-to- patient ratio. He made this thought- provoking statement during the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the NMA in Gombe back in September, 2022. Ever since, the situation has been exacerbated by factors such as the low budgetary allocation to the health sector by the federal and state governments that have serially reflected in the perilous pay package for the health workers, lack of required drugs, and medical equipment.

But going forward it is a welcome development that the President Bola Tinubu-led administration has taken the bull by the horn, by increasing the budgetary allocation to health to N1.17 trillion, out of the N20.5trn 2023 total budget. That is up from N826.9 billion in 2022. Out of this, N404 08 billion goes to capital expenditure while N580.82 billion is meant for recurrent expenditure. Another N2.5 billion is for aids and grants. We commend this positive change in the narrative of healthcare delivery not only because it is the highest ever in Nigeria’s political history but with the promise to revamp 18,000 healthcare centres across the country.

These include 17,000 and 774 secondary and primary healthcare centres, respectively. We also commend the recent initiative to sign a compact agreement between the WHO and the Federal Government with the aim to improve healthcare delivery in the country. This was brought to the fore at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting chaired by Vice President, Kashim Shettima. It was in response to the presentation of the Nigerian Health Sector Renewal Programme by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate. With this in place, challenges such as financing, human capital development, and a supervisory point of order should be frontally tackled.

While this is also an opportunity to get more people trained as medical doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, nothing must be done to reduce the cut-off marks of entry into the Universities through JAMB/UTME. The training standard practices should never be compromised. Also of great significance is the need to provide for their welfare, with increments in their salaries to compete favourably with their counterparts across the globe. They also need an enabling environment to operate and maximise their potential in an atmosphere devoid of insecurity and threats to their wellbeing.

Once all these are guaranteed, many of them who relocated to foreign shores would likely return to give their best to the only country we can truly call our own. While we urge the state governments to borrow a fresh leaf from the Federal Government on increasing the budget for healthcare delivery, the central government should walk the talk on budget implementation, with probity, transparency and fiscal responsibility.

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