Abbas Wants Maternal Mortality, Brain Drain Checked

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, has urged the Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN) to champion solutions to Nigeria’s worsening maternal mortality crisis and the mass migration of medical professionals.

At the 24th biennial conference of MWAN in Kaduna, with the theme ‘Global Health, Ethics and Transformative Leadership in a Changing World’, Abbas said the conference must serve as a “melting pot of ideas” to tackle the country’s most pressing health challenges.

The speaker, who was represented by the director-general of the National Water Resources Institute, Abduljalal Danbaba, lamented that despite Nigeria’s population of over 218 million, the country has only about 74,000 registered medical doctors in 2022, a ratio of one doctor to 10,000 patients, far below the World Health Organisation’s standard of one doctor to 600 patients.

“As of 2023, the United Kingdom alone had over 12,000 Nigerian doctors. The United States, Canada and Germany are also leading destinations. This brain drain is having a profound effect on our health indices”.

Abbas described the rising maternal mortality rate as “deeply disturbing,” stressing that women, who make up a marginal majority of the population, bore the heaviest burden.

Turning to women’s place in leadership, Abbas said the House of Representatives is working to create reserved seats for women and persons living with disabilities in national and subnational assemblies.

In his address, the governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr. Abdulkadir Meyere, pledged the State’s continued support for women’s advancement in medicine and healthcare delivery. He urged female doctors to mentor younger colleagues, uphold ethics, and embrace research that would improve lives.

He described Dr. Zainab Kwaru Muhammad-Idris’s emergence as the first woman from Northern Nigeria to lead MWAN as a milestone that will inspire generations of young girls across the region.

He said her election was proof that women from the North were stepping boldly into national leadership.