Devastating Brain Drain: Nigeria Left with Only 55,000 Doctors as 16,000 Emigrate in Five Years

• Brain drain: Nigeria now has only 55,000 licensed doctors for over 200 million people, with 16,000 emigrating in the past five years, leaving the country struggling to provide adequate healthcare.
• Major cities like Lagos and Abuja have more doctors per capita, but the national average is far below WHO recommendations, worsening the health crisis in rural areas.
• Despite government incentives and training programs to retain healthcare workers, the ongoing emigration of doctors to countries like the UK continues to deplete Nigeria’s medical workforce.

Devastating Brain Drain: Nigeria Left with Only 55,000 Doctors as 16,000 Emigrate in Five Years

Nigeria now has only 55,000 licensed doctors to serve its population of over 200 million, the government has revealed.

Health Minister Muhammad Pate shared this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today, disclosing that 16,000 doctors left the country in the past five years, while 17,000 were transferred.

Pate lamented the mass exodus of doctors, health workers, tech entrepreneurs, and various professionals seeking better opportunities abroad, leaving the country “barely managing” with the remaining workforce.

Nigeria has about 300,000 health professionals, including doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and laboratory scientists.

However, Pate noted that out of 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors, only 55,000 are currently practicing in the country, with many others in the US and UK.

The minister expressed concern over the impact of brain drain on the health sector, highlighting the scarcity of healthcare practitioners and the uneven distribution of skilled doctors in urban centres like Lagos and Abuja.

According to Premium Times, Lagos has about 7,600 doctors, while Abuja has 4,700, with doctor-to-population ratios of 14.7 per 10,000 and 4.6 per 10,000, respectively. The national average is 2.2 per 10,000.

Pate stressed the critical role of human resources in a robust health sector, emphasizing that Nigeria cannot afford to keep losing top talents to developed nations.

He added that the government is enhancing training programs and incentivizing healthcare workers who choose to remain in the country.

The minister acknowledged that the “Japa” phenomenon—Nigerian slang for emigration—is not unique to Nigeria but is a global trend.

Other countries are also experiencing shortages and are actively recruiting more professionals.

Nigeria has been battling the increasing exodus of healthcare professionals to developed countries.

With a doctor-patient ratio over five times worse than the WHO recommendation, Nigeria continues to lose hundreds of doctors annually to brain drain.

Statistics show that over 5,000 Nigerian medical doctors migrated to the UK between 2015 and 2022.

According to the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPC), 233 Nigerian doctors moved to the UK in 2015.

The number increased to 279 in 2016, 475 in 2017, 852 in 2018, 1,347 in 2019, 833 in 2020, and 932 in 2021.

As of July, Emeka Orji, President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), revealed that the association is left with just over 9,000 medical doctors due to the brain drain crisis.

The continued emigration of health practitioners has led to a shortage of skilled health workers in the country, negatively affecting the quality of healthcare services provided to citizens.