Even at the best of times, the nation's healthcare delivery system remains near prostrate for the simple reason that there is the dearth of health personnel, medical doctors especially, in the system.
It was apparently because of this reality that the Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, recently proposed a reduction in the number of years that medical students spend in training, an idea the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) completely rejected. The problems posed by insufficient medical doctors in Nigerian public hospitals are compounded by incessant strikes by medical doctors, which endanger the lives of scores of patients.
Current global mapping of patient-doctor ratio suggests that Nigeria posts a poor ratio of 1:3,500 as against the World Health Organisation's (WHO) standard of 1:600. Cuba, with 1:170 is best rated, while neighbouring Ghana with 1:1,300 is relatively better placed. A report credited to the chairman of the Kogi State chapter of the Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria (EHOAN), Mr. Solomon Anyegwu, last year said inadequate health personnel was the bane of sustainable healthcare delivery in the country.
Anyegwu said statistics showed that in most public hospitals, one doctor attended to over 200 patients, adding that in 2000, the country could only boast of about 39,000 medical doctors saddled with the responsibility of managing the health conditions of about 150 million people.
Indeed, a fact sheet published online by the Nigerian Health Journal in 2010 gave the number of doctors in Nigeria as 39,210; number of accredited medical schools in Nigeria 26; number of Nigerian doctors practicing in the United States and the United Kingdom 2,392 and 1,529, respectively; ratio of patients to a doctor in Nigeria 39 per 100,000 (of the population); average salary ( at entry point) of a Nigerian doctor employed in a government hospital N101,107.64; and estimated number of Nigerian doctors that migrated overseas in 2007, 3,567, etc.
The country allocates roughly five percent of annual budget to the health sector, instead of the expected 15 percent to enable it actualize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to address pressing health-care problems. Even if the figures are not exact, as the government would naturally claim, they are pointers to why the nation's health sector has been on the path of steady decay.
These facts can assist in explaining why Nigerian medical doctors prefer playing the 'Andrew' in search of greener pastures, as well as why government officials and the well-to-do in the private sector waste huge funds on medical tourism.
Resident doctors in the country are currently on strike, demanding, among other things, improved conditions of service and the upgrading of health facilities. They have refused government's entreaties to call off the strike, insisting that it made no sense calling off the strike based on nebulous official promises only to down tools again should the government renege on such promises, as has been the case. President Jonathan had pledged that the Federal Government would create a special intervention fund to accelerate the rapid establishment of more centres of medical excellence in the country.
In audience with the NMA in Abuja recently, the President had said: "The recommendation of a special fund with low interest loans for the establishment of state-of-the-art medical facilities is a creative idea that would receive appropriate consideration from the government''.
Jonathan was said to be determined to do all he could to positively resolve all issues that continually plunge the health sector into crisis. Notwithstanding such official promises, however, attention has been drawn to the diminishing number of medical doctors in the country. The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) says there are about 65,000 registered medical doctors in the country, out of which only 25,000 are practicing in the country. The WHO was reported to have said Nigeria needed additional 283, 308 medical doctors to be considered serious about her healthcare delivery system.
The national president of the NMA, Dr.Osahon Enabulele and many other stakeholders, have identified poor human resources planning, structural disconnect, hostile working conditions, unattractive remuneration, et cetera as some of the reasons Nigerian medical doctors prefer rendering their services to foreign lands. We believe the FG can address these challenges if it is truly committed to saving the nation's health sector.
