By
Dr. Shehi Ali Abubakar
shehiali@yahoo.com


It used to be unthinkable to see a Medical
Doctor unemployed or has failed to get a
job within a few days after graduation.
Infact what delays a Doctors employment
is the mandatory swearing in ceremony
by the Medical and Dental Council before
he takes on any employment. It is
common for your friends from other
faculties to envy you; by saying you are
lucky6 as you are assured employment as
soon as you graduate.


Housemanship or Internship is the first
point of call for a Medical graduate as a
pre-registration employment for 1 year
before full registration is given to practice
as a medical practitioner. This 1 year
employment is mandatory and a Medical
Doctor is supposed to do it within 2 years
of graduation or his license will be
revoked until he writes another exam
which is set by the Medical and Dental
Council of Nigeria.


The situation on ground presently is far
from the picture painted above. Medical
Doctors in Nigerian are presently in an
unemployment crisis that many are
wondering whether the many years spent
(ASUU strike inclusive) were actually
worth it after all.
I am not an angel of doom, and neither am
I a pessimist but I think I can say without
fear of contradiction that the future is to
say the least gloomy for the Medical
Profession in Nigeria. This is a profession
to which I belong so I stand to gain
nothing painting it this way, but the truth
must be told.


Now, that was a digression. A freshly
graduated Doctor now takes an average of
eight sixteen months to secure a place
for Internship and by the time he or she
completes the programmes,. His
provisional license would have expired
and he would have concluded his
Internship without a license.
These group of Doctors are the lucky
ones because at lease they have secured
a place for the internship within the 2
years of their provisional license. The
other group and I personally know many
can not get a place within the 2 year
period and by this time, they are legally
speaking unqualified Doctors.


This situation has now extended to
medical officers who are the next step
after House officers who may or may not
have done their 1 year mandatory youth
service scheme depending on age. A
Medical Officer is either pursuing his
residency in an accredited hospital or is
working as a general practitioner in a
general or private hospital.
There are many Medical Doctors now who
have passed their primaries exam which
qualifies them to start their residency
programme in a recognized hospital but
have failed to gain employment into these
hospitals.
Over 20 of my classmates along have this
qualification but are either sitting at home
or at best offering locum services at
private hospitals far less than the national
minimum wage.


Many Doctors who can afford it have now
resorted to writing foreign exams which
would enable them to practice either in the
UK or USA. These exams come at great
cost but they are more reliable than the
Nigerian equivalent in terms of relevance
to the field and also as a means of getting
employment because despite our
numerous problems, Nigerian Doctors are
highly regarded in foreign countries. It is
estimated that there are over 20,000
Nigerian Doctors in the USA alone and this
est6imate is conservative because there
are many that bypass immigration laws of
these countries.


Dear reader you may ask what is the
genesis of this crisis in this noble
profession you respect so much. My
simple answer is the systematic neglect of
the health sector by successive
government of this potentially great
country. No health policy or plan has
been adhered to for more than 10 years
by any government and some of these
policies are well articulated if only they are
implemented. Poor budgeting allocations
over the past 20 years to the health sector
at between 2 3% have hot helped matter.
Teaching hospitals were established to
serve as tertiary level of medical care for
the training of Medical Doctors at both the
undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Presently many teaching hospitals need
resident Doctors in various departments
to fill up the spaces created by former
resident Doctors who have completed
their residency programme and are now
consultants, but are enable to employ
these residents because of lack of funds
in the last 2 year.

Some teaching hospitals that have done
interviews for resident Doctors over
8months ago, some of which have given
letters of appointment to the Doctors
cannot afford to allow them to commence
work because they cannot pay them. This
is as bad as that.
Some years back, the government in an
attempt to increase the number of
hospitals that offer residency programmes
in the country upgraded some general
hospitals to the status of federal medical
centres, but this noble idea has been
bastardized by the same lack of funds for
the employment of staff, for which
purpose the hospitals were upgraded in
the first place. Thee hospitals now have
beautiful infrastructure without manpower
to run them.


Dear reader, with all these myriad of
problems outlined, you must ask what are
the solutions to them. A well articulated
health policy backed by adequate
budgetary allocated and a determined
political will to implement them is my
humble suggestion. A target should be
set for each teaching hospital, Federal
Medical Centres and other accredited
hospitals for the number of residents and
house officers they can employ and this
should be backed by enough funds to
achieve the target. There are many state
owned general hospitals that can be
accredited to offer residency programme
in liaison with Federal Ministry of
Health or other teaching hospitals as this
will help in decongesting the teaching
hospitals to which most residents run to
for their residency programme.
I believe a hospital does nothave to be
affiliated to a University for it to be able to
run a postgraduate programmes as long
as it satisfies the criteria for the
programme as stipulated by the National
Postgraduate Medical College or the West
African Postgraduate Medical College.
This will go along way in expanding the
opportunities for Medical Doctors to
pursue specialist courses, improve the
quality of health care they offer to their
patients and also contain the present brain
drain tide now facing the health sector.
It is very unfortunate for the government
of this country to spend tax payers
money in training Medical Doctors over
many years only for these Doctors to be
lured away by foreign countries just for
the simple reason that there is no space
for them in these hospitals or not
incentives for them to stay and work.
Some of the best trained Doctors you
have encounter in Europe or Asia are
Nigerians trained in Nigeria and exported
to serve thee countries to the detriment of
their own nation. The implementation of
some of these and many other policies will
go a long way in bringing back those days
during which it was unthinkable to have
an unemployed Medical Doctor.


http://www.gamji.com/article4000/NEWS4395.htm

e don reach una turn, this what engineers and other disciplines have been suffering....welcome to the party