It’s now to one Doctor to 10,000 Patients -NARD

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, says 4,000 of its members are ready to migrate abroad for greener pastures, warning that it is now a ratio of one doctor to 10,000 patients in the country.

The revelation comes as the association expressed worries over government’s ‘nonchalant attitudes to members’ salaries, welfare and other deserved packages,” Vanguard reports

NARD revealed that Nigeria had already lost 2,000 doctors to the other countries in the last two years and that Nigeria was well short of WHO’s recommended ratio of one doctor to 600 patients.

Although he admitted that mobility of labour was recognized anywhere in the world, he, however, said there were several reasons people can decide to leave their countries or migrate to other places, tasking government to find out the reasons and address them.

“Mobility of labour is recognized anywhere in the world.” NARD president, Dr Emeka Orji, told the publication on Sunday, November 27.

“There are several reasons why people can decide to leave their counties or migrate to other places even to move from one state to the other in the same country to work ranging from welfare services, remuneration,working condition, security and other social issues.”

“And what government should do is to try to find out why and then address it.

“That is what a serious government does, because the truth is that it is really a very serious problem in the health sector as we speak and we believe it is an emergency and that if nothing is done urgently to arrest the drift, we would come to a stage where we won’t have doctors in our hospitals.

“Over the past two years or so,we have lost over 2,000 doctors to an outside world and on average,we have lost between 100 to 160 doctors every month.

“We are not just talking about the low-level staff here,we are talking about the highly specialized doctors leaving the country.

“And when you undertake studies to know why they are leaving, 80 percent of them responded that it is because of poor remuneration.

“The salary structure we are using now came into being in 2009. That is over 13 years ago and part of th agreement we had with government