If there is anyone who still wonders why Nigerian doctors and other health workers are leaving the country in droves, the recent demonstration by Abia doctors who barricaded Government House, Umuahia, to protest their two years unpaid salaries provides a plausible reason.
The doctors stormed the Government House to demand from Governor Okezie Ikpeazu their 25 months’ salary arrears. The doctor’s counterparts at the Health Management Board are owed 13 months salaries.
Additionally, the doctors have declared an indefinite strike, subjecting, as is always the case, patients in public hospitals and other health centres across the state to untold hardship.
How a governor can owe workers salary for such a long period is what we find very hard to comprehend? The fact that it is Governor Ikpeazu, a trained health professional, makes it more befuddling.
This whole issue of poor working environment for the doctors and other health professionals is responsible for the mass exodus of health workers. As should be expected, the statistics of brain drain in the Nigerian health sector are startling!
Available records indicate that Nigeria lost over 9,000 medical doctors to the UK, Canada and the United States between 2016 and 2018, with yet another report disclosing that no fewer than 727 medical doctors trained in Nigeria relocated to the UK alone in six months, between December 2021 and May 2022.
It is reported that in December 2022 alone, more than 1,800 health workers left the country in search of the proverbial greener pasture.
Only recently, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) appealed to the government at both the federal and state levels to declare a state of emergency in the health sector and to specifically address the worrisome issue of brain drain.
The brain drain phenomenon in the industry primarily occurs due to the desire of the doctors and other health workers to seek a better working environment where they can be paid well, guaranteed prompt payment of salaries and availability of working tools.
Regrettably, the present issue with Abia doctors conduces to this phenomenon.
As of December last year, the NMA said Nigeria had one doctor to 10,000 patients as the country has 24, 000 actively licensed physicians caring for its over 200 million population because of brain drain.
Unfortunately, rather than do what will encourage them to stay, Governor Ikpeazu and his likes are providing an incentive for them to relocate.
It is distressing to note that this is happening under a government that promised to prioritise health care delivery, as Governor Ikpeazu specifically vowed, during his electioneering campaigns, to accord all the necessary attention to health care delivery by making health care services accessible and affordable for all.
We doubt that this is possible in a situation where health workers are being owed two years salaries. Without any prevarication, by owing doctors and other health workers this long, Ikpeazu is doing the opposite of his pledge to prioritise the health sector.
With a medical bias, having studied Clinical Biochemistry for his first degree, Biochemical Toxicology and Biochemical Pharmacology for his M.Sc and Ph.D. respectively, the Abia governor was expected to accord top most priority to health workers.
Governor Ikpeazu, whose tenure ends in a matter of months, should not bequeath the legacy of industrial disharmony in the health sector to his successor.
As a newspaper, we remind the Abia governor that one of his primary duties is to safeguard the health and well-being of the citizens of the state. In this wise, he should strive to resolve this industrial discord in the health sector of his state as quickly as possible.
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