Stemming the tide of brain drain in the health care sector in Nigeria

1] Make residency training compulsory and readily available for all newly graduated doctors.
- Immediately doctors are graduating, hospitals for house job and residency training should be allocated to all doctors.
NYSC to be scrapped for doctors
Most doctors to be encouraged to do residency in family medicine (GP training) and it should last 3-4 yrs like it obtains in the UK and US
All doctors in Nigeria practicing clinical medicine will be specialists just like in the US.
This will ultimately improve healthcare and make young doctors fulfilled and happy.
Doctors will be allowed to migrate immediately they are done with specialist training. They would have served the country in their 3 to 4yrs residency training while being paid .Many will stay and those that travel will earn more money abroad as specialists and compensate for apparently lost time while training.
All state general hospitals and FMC to be upgraded to GP training institutions.
Increase the salaries of consultants to 2m/month , SR 1.5M and Registrar 1M after tax.
House officers 600k
2) Build a federal 100 bed hospital with radiology and laboratory facilities in each of the local governments in Nigeria and run it on a PP plan . This can be completed with 1m USD each. Let it be handed over to trusted players in the private sector like Clinix, Mecure, Lagoon , St Nicholas and Evercare to run it.
Approx 800 local govts in Nigeria comes down to 800 million USD . This can be sourced from the world bank and will deliver proper primary health care to the people. They can also serve as GP training centres.
3) Equip universities to triple their intake of medical students. Make them priority in acquiring student loans. Reduce subsidy on medical training and spend the money on building and improving training facilities, significantly increasing the pay of medical teachers, improving the facilities at the teaching hospitals
4) Train graduate nurses and those with RN/midwifery with a 1yr paid compulsory training and 1yr paid internship to become Nurse practitioners as obtains in the US and Australia.
Combined 2 years of compulsory training and internship will adequately prepare the nurse to become a Nurse practitioner and should be paid 350k monthly after tax during this period of training and internship.
A full fledged Nurse practitioner who will work largely in areas of need where there are no doctors should earn 1m a month after tax.
They will be the engine room of our primary health care with adequate supervision by consultant GPs.
These nurse practitioners will have a supervising doctor – a consultant GP/family physician who will review cases virtually on a daily basis.
5) The least paid nurse must not earn less than 500k a month after tax

6) Pharmacists should also be well compensated. All pharmacists should have an extra additional year of clinical training to make it 6yrs of training and ensure all pharmacists have Pharm D- doctor of pharmacy.
Pharmacy interns should earn 600k after tax
Post intern pharmacists should earn 1m a month after tax
7) Radiographers/ Physiotherapists should earn 500k during internship and 800K post internship
Other paramedics should all be well compensated
9) Health care workers in the private sector must be well compensated by their employers and government must be ready to support employers in paying workers.
10) Encourage health workers in the diaspora to invest back in their alma maters by encouraging vice chancellors to organize regular virtual meetings and involve them in donating to the facility.
11) Attach every federal hospital major ward like medical, surgical or gynae wards to a billionaire in Nigeria / abroad who ensures that the hospital ward is well taken care of and equipped and ward is named after the person.
12) Religious organizations and groups , companies and businesses can also be involved in hospital ward building
13) Same thing should be done to all state general hospitals and primary health centres
14) Introduction of telemedicine with our esteemed health workers in the diaspora who are ready to give back to patients at home free of charge by virtual consultation . Radiologists could help with reporting of backlog of cases and clinicians could do online consultations and treatment.
If we can implement all these , I believe we will reduce the brain drain, have a brain gain and have a strong health care system with a healthy and strong population.
Dr Matthew EA
Specialist Doctor in Australia

Nigerian doctors just want to get out. So this really just screams fvck all