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Consider your safety, senior physicians warn 58 UK-bound doctors

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Nigerian medical doctors wishing to leave the country for overseas jobs may have to reconsider their stance, owing to the rising COVID-19 pandemic globally, experts have said.

Senior health care workers say this is not the time for doctors to be in a rush to leave the country, “irrespective of the attractive welfare package beckoning abroad.”

They hinged their counselling on what they described as “the multiple risks presented by the pandemic, especially for health workers.”

Recall that Nigeria Immigration Service at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, recently intercepted 58 Nigerian doctors who were travelling to the UK.

The NIS said 56 of the doctors did not have requisite visa for their journey.

It has been observed that before the COVID-19 pandemic, health workers were leaving the country in droves, attributing their action to poor working conditions, lack of job satisfaction, low wage and high tax, among others.

In separate interviews with PUNCH HealthWise on the issue, medical experts urged doctors who wish to leave the country to consider their safety first, rather than the welfare package and opportunities being offered.

A past President, Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria, Dr Omede Idris, said the COVID-19 pandemic had presented lots of uncertainties globally that require caution before one thinks of leaving the country.

Idris, also a former President, Nigerian Medical Association, said, “I am so shocked that some doctors are going for greener pastures now. This is the time the whole world is saying, ‘Stay where you are.’

“The COVID-19 situation that we are in now, nobody can predict what will happen the next minute. Whatever greener pastures they want to acquire, they may not be there to enjoy it.

“Those desperate to leave the country should also know that they are going to another nation. Sometimes, what they think they will get may never be as expected when they get there.

“So, let them not be in a rush to leave the country.”

Continuing, Idris said, “Rome was not built in a day. Those developed countries they are rushing to also had teething problems before they developed to where they are today.

“One is wondering the basis for which they want to leave the country at this crucial time of global pandemic.

“This is not the time to talk about brain drain when countries are shutting their borders because no one knows who is carrying the virus.”

A survey by NOI Polls in 2019 confirmed the prevalence of doctors seeking work opportunities abroad, as it revealed that almost nine in 10 respondents (88 percent) prefer working abroad, especially in the UK and US.

Ninety-eight per cent of the respondents cited high taxes and deductions from their salary as reasons for decision to migrate; while 92 per cent cited low work satisfaction, and another 91 per cent gave poor salary and emoluments as reasons.

Evidence shows that Nigeria has about 72,000 medical doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, with approximately 35,000 practising in the country.

According to the National Universities Commission, Nigeria needs about 300,000 medical doctors to meet the doctor-patient ratio of 1:600 recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Current doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria, NUC said, is 1:3,500, lamenting that this was among the several challenges bedevilling the nation’s health sector.

The former NMA boss, however, identified lack of job satisfaction and poor remuneration as major reasons why many Nigerian doctors are leaving the country.

He explained:

“There are reasons why people move in the field of medicine. It is a matter of choice and where you get job satisfaction and better package.

“If people are not satisfied with their job and nobody is ready to address it, you may prefer to remain there if you have no option. But if you have a better option, you have to move. It is more of job satisfaction, fulfilment and contentment.

“If you are in a place and you are not protected in the work that you are doing, you will have to go to a place that you are protected. If you are working and your needs are not met, you will love to go to a place that your needs will be met.

“Nigerian doctors are not satisfied working here.”

To address the problem, Idris called on the government to be more sincere and truthful to its promise to health workers.

“Sincerity of purpose and the government living by her word is what is lacking. There is need for transparency and accountability on the part of government.

“The right structures should be put in place and health issue should be spread across the three levels of government or be made exclusive of the Federal Government or it should be concurrent for the three levels of government. That is the only way we can have a form of uniformity.

“Time has come for the challenges in the health sector to be addressed holistically. We can’t get it all perfect because the world itself is dynamic.

“But since what we have put in place had not yielded result these years, the time has come for us to review those documents that have mitigated against the development of the health sector so that we can move forward,” he said.

A Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physiotherapy, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Dr Chris Okafor, said one cannot fathom the reasons why some doctors want to leave the country at this crucial time, knowing that the pandemic is global.

Okafor said:

“COVID-19 fatalities in Africa are still very low. One wonders why the doctors are going to the UK, considering the high infection and mortality rate there.

“Though there may be various reasons for their action, the risk is certainly high.”

The lecturer, however, noted that the working conditions in Nigeria, plus government’s attitude, push Nigerian doctors to foreign lands.

“Nigeria economy is so bad that people, especially young doctors, are facing hardship. Again, their salary does not reflect the risks associated with the profession.

“If an average Nigerian medical personnel tells you what his/her hazard allowance is, then you wonder what hazard really means.

“In this ongoing pandemic, we still have doctors who are going on strike over hazard allowance because the government failed to pay them.

“So, how do you qualify a situation whereby, after you have risked your life and that of your family, four months after, you are begging for your hazard allowance to be paid?” he said.

Okafor, therefore, urged the government to address the problem before the situation gets out of hand, warning that the country was already faced with acute shortage of medical personnel, even before the pandemic.

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