Nigeria needs 250,000 doctors- World Medical Association reveals
The President of World Medical Association, Osahon Enabulele, has revealed that Nigeria needs over 250,000 medical doctors to meet the World Health Organisation(WHO), doctor to patient ratio. He made this revelation during a public lecture organised by the Federated Chapel of the Edo Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ.
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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 98,000 doctors according to the last update. Out of this 98,000, only 50,000 are actually practicing in Nigeria. The present situation, by international standard, a doctor should be assigned to less than 600 patient. 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 Abuja Accord in 2001, where African countries decided to dedicate 15 percent of their budgets to healthcare provision.
He identified lack of fund, inadequate infrastructure, unemployment, work place condition, renumeration, brain drain, economy, inflation and ineffective healthcare among others, as problem facing the Nigeria’s health system.
He said: ‘There is need to establish Health Service Commission that would better administer the health system and drive medical man power, training, best human resource and develop plan among others.”
In her welcome address, 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,” she added.
VANGUARD/Wumi
