The President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Prof Innocent Uja, has likened the way medical practitioners leave Nigeria to practise abroad to sitting on a time bomb.

He therefore called on the Federal Government to do something urgent about the situation.

This is just as the Joint Health Sector Union advised the government to improve working conditions for health workers in the country.

Uja made his position known in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents on Sunday.

He said, “The issue of brain drain in health sector should not be taken lightly because it is like sitting on a time bomb.

“This issue must be properly discussed on the right table between Federal Government and stakeholders, because the way things are going, we are exporting our best and producing for other countries.

“If we are not good, why do they employ us? Our doctors are well-trained and anywhere they go, they will be employed.

“Though, we are not valued in Nigeria, when you go to Europe and America, there is a report recently that over 5,700 Nigerian doctors are practising in UK.

“On a monthly basis, many Nigerian doctors are travelling out. The issue of brain drain in the nation’s health sector must be properly discussed.”

Uja faulted the recent suggestion by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, that medical workers trained by the government should be made to sign a bond that would make them serve the country for at least nine years before they can consider relocating to another country.

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The NMA President noted that with the rules of international convention, no one could stop mobility of labour.

“The truth of the matter is that if you prevent people from going and they stay in Nigeria and are not working, will you force any doctor to see a patient? It is demotivation, it is not something to be contemplated at all.

“The best thing is to understand the factors responsible for brain drain in health sector and stop them before they become monsters,” Uja said.

Also, the Joint Health Sector Union in a separate interview with The PUNCH advised the Federal Government to improve working conditions for health workers in the country.

The union’s spokesperson, Olumide Akintayo, said, “If we don’t improve working conditions, we will continue to see that most workers will migrate.

“The issue of brain drain is not just about the physicians; it also has to do with health workers.

“We cannot continue in this kind of situation: hostile work environment, lack of consistent pay and all of that. These things need to be challenged.”

TheGiftedOne:
If you import State-of-the-art facilities for our health care system, our professionals will not want to be exported. Address your ills and things will naturally fall into place.

WibusJaga:


Just ban Medical Tourism by our Leaders & Public servants. No leader or public servant must travel abroad for treatment. Then they'll be forced to improve our medical sector. Same goes for our Educational sector.

ogododo:



https://punchng.com/brain-drain-were-exporting-our-best-doctors-says-nma-president/

FreeStuffsNG:
It beats my imagination how the FG sits by with reckless abandon and allow trained hands it trained or substantially subsidise their training to immediately graduate and head overseas to work there leaving their parents behind for others to care and attend to.

If you go overseas, you better take your family along, especially your parents. This is because nobody here will take you serious when you are overseas and start suggesting interventions when your parents get into health crisis. It happened recently with Dr Malaifa. Nigerian health care professionals who stay back mock them with "sebi it is us who can't go overseas to practice too and abandon our parents? ". Even if you are staying far from Nigeria because you are from a dysfunctional family system here at home, to avoid stories that touch, take your parents along or that Nigerian system you cheated will , sadly, consume them. I know few who come home only for funerals and it's sad listening to their accounts of how their parents die without reaping the benefits of having children who are healthcare professionals.

Those who stayed behind to develop and serve their fatherland could as well have left like you too. As we type here, Cuban health care professionals will hardly leave their country and considered one of the least paid in the world but for the love for their country and parents, they stay within their country and serve. Since all these years we have been "exporting " doctors, Pharmacists, Nurses etc overseas, we have never seen any of our 'exports' on Forbes list or rank high among wealthy Nigerians, making one to wonder if they are truly that successful financially overseas. I even see a few do better here than some overseas! So who is NMA fooling?

Honestly, I blame the FG for not putting measures in place to get value for taxpayers who they used their money to train the NMA members. It's completely unacceptable.
All the enemies of Nigeria will lose las las, they always lose. God bless Nigeria forever.

Boogyman557:
Holly Gram real matters. WTF MAN

treatise:
They will return when we are serious ; home is home.