The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has said that Nigeria is unlikely to meet the recommendation of the United Nations and the World Health Organization’s ratio of one doctor to 600 patients.
Ngige spoke on Friday during a two-day quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum in Abuja.
The meeting was convened to discuss how to strengthen the health system at the sub-national levels, with an overall objective of achieving Universal Health Coverage.
On the UN recommendation of 1 doctor to 600 Patients, the minister said, “We’re not a United Nations’ country, we are a developing country. So, when such figures are given, I will tell them every rule has an exception. We are not yet there.
“So, we shall make do with what we have. We have surpluses; I keep on telling them that we have not deployed our medical manpower proportionately, and adequately as we should do.
“How many doctors do we have in the rural areas and in the suburbs since everybody is in the townships, with medical and dental council data showing 4,000 doctors every year.
“Before, it used to be 3,000; before the private universities came, a lot of them were not doing medicine, including Afe Babalola and others.
“We are now at about 4,000 plus, the people even trained abroad are coming back from Russia and Ukraine, and the rest of them all Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria is registering them.
“So, almost everybody has come to Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt to stay. And we have 10,000 primary care centres that are unmanned as of the last count.”
On his part, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, called on state governors to create an enabling environment for physicians in their states.
Abayomi said there were more than 20,000 Nigerian-born physicians outside the country doing extremely well.
“This is why our Governors should create an enabling environment for our physicians. By now, Nigeria should not be talking about brain drain rather, it should be talking about bringing back our physicians to the country” he stressed.
In her remarks, Cross River Health Commissioner, Dr. Betta Edu, said that the meeting was vital to promoting experience sharing, collaboration across states, learning, and fostering of sub-national development towards building a resilient health system in the country.
