Brain Drain Reduces Abuja National Hospital Workforce to 2,500

The National Hospital in Abuja said the health sector’s brain drain has reduced its workforce from 3,000 to 2,500—about a 17 per cent loss. The hospital said this is despite its 25 years of medical breakthroughs and significant staff expansion.

The Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Muhammad Raji, discussed these challenges in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

“If not for the brain drain affecting our workforce, we would be talking about 3,000 today,” he said.

“The migration of healthcare professionals from Nigeria to other countries has reached alarming levels, posing challenges for maintaining adequate staffing in Nigerian hospitals.

“It’s not easy to get as many healthcare workers as we need, especially with the increasing number of professionals migrating abroad,” he noted.

However, he hoped to reverse the trend through innovative collaborations with the Nigerian diaspora.

“The hospital has established partnerships allowing Nigerian medical professionals working abroad to return on a rotational basis.

“These professionals spend two weeks here and then return at their convenience, benefiting them and our healthcare system,” he explained.

West Africa Weekly reported that owing to the unfavourable working conditions of health practitioners, who are often overworked and underpaid, many have fled and are seeking to leave the country.

It will be recalled that Dr Fatima Kyari, the Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), revealed that in 2023, only 58,000 doctors out of 130,000 officially accredited medical practitioners renewed their annual practising licences, which is a stark reflection of the brain drain plaguing the nation’s health sector.

Also, Faruk Abubakar, the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), recently disclosed that in 2023, more than 15,000 nurses and midwives left Nigeria in pursuit of better opportunities, a reason for which the council devised stringent rules to trap nurses.

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