Japa: Doctor-Patient Ratio Worsening – NMA

• The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) reports that the country’s doctor-patient ratio is about 1,000 percent below the WHO’s recommended level, exacerbated by the emigration of healthcare workers seeking better opportunities abroad.
• Inadequate equipment, insecurity, poor working conditions, and low salaries contribute to the “Japa” syndrome, with over 1,056 consultants leaving between 2019 and 2023 and more than 900 resident doctors emigrating to Europe in 2023 alone.
• NMA President Bala Audu calls for improved working environments, better compensation, housing schemes for doctors, and timely employment of new graduates. The government aims to increase enrollment in medical schools, but Audu stresses the need to enhance training facilities to maintain quality education.

Japa: Doctor-Patient Ratio Worsening – NMA

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has raised alarms over the deteriorating doctor-patient ratio in the country. NMA President, Bala Audu, highlighted this concern during an interactive session with the media in Abuja on Wednesday, noting that the ratio is about 1,000 percent below the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendation.

“The doctor-patient ratio is about 1,000 per cent less than what the World Health Organisation recommended. Recently, there was a medical school that graduated its medical students and I think they did a survey and asked the new graduates if they would stay or prefer to leave. Your guess is as good as mine. It’s something that is worsening, but it is something that we can mitigate. And I think that is the essence of such interactive forums, not to keep crying about our problems, but to profile solutions to these problems,” Audu stated.

The exodus of Nigerian healthcare workers seeking better opportunities abroad has exacerbated the situation. Factors driving this trend include inadequate equipment, worsening insecurity, poor working conditions, and unsatisfactory salary structures.

Data from the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria revealed that about 1,056 consultants left the country between 2019 and 2023, while the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors reported that over 900 of its members emigrated to Europe between January and September 2023.

Audu emphasized the need for improving health workers’ well-being, providing better working environments, and offering housing schemes for doctors.

“The issues that will prevent doctors, and nurses from leaving this country include improving their well-being. It’s more than just their take-home package, their take-home package is important because they also need to have health care, they also need to educate their children, and so on. And if another person is providing a better opportunity, there is a tendency for them to take that option.

“Also, we need to improve the friendliness of the workplace environment. There have been situations of attack on health care providers, especially by the people who take patients to hospitals, probably because one or other things are not available and everybody is charged up and angry, and you get attacked. The facilities also need to be improved.

“Housing is also one of the requirements, especially for internship training. By regulation, for you to have quality training for house officers, they must be housed within the hospital because they need to be available at all times. You hear very much about the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors. The residency training implies that they should live within the hospital, which means there has to be provision of accommodation for them.”

Audu stressed the importance of timely employment for newly graduated medical professionals to prevent brain drain.

“We train these people with a lot of money. This country invests so much in training every doctor, nurse, dentist, and other healthcare provider, but how many of them do we take up after they graduate, despite the challenges we have in terms of the demand power for health? So if we don’t employ them early enough, somebody else will come and employ them and take them outside this country.”

In May, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, announced an increase in the enrollment quota for medical, nursing, and other health professional schools from 28,000 to 64,000 yearly as a measure to counter the Japa syndrome in the health sector.

Pate emphasized that increasing the enrollment quota is a critical step in addressing the healthcare workforce shortage.

The NMA President, however, pointed out the necessity of enhancing training facilities to match the increased enrollment.

“If you are previously admitting 200 medical students each year, now you want to admit 400 medical students each year, then you have to double the accommodation, you have to double the facilities for their training if you are to maintain the quality of their training.

“So these are the areas that we are having discussions with the government to ensure that those areas are improved so that we continue to produce high-quality health professionals, not just for Nigeria but for the rest of the world,” he added.

The worsening doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria remains a significant challenge, but the NMA’s proactive approach in engaging with the government and proposing practical solutions offers hope for improvement in the healthcare sector.