‘Global Health Workers’ Deficit Hits 10m’

The immediate past president of the World Medical Association (WMA), Dr. Osahon Enabulele, has said the world needs 10 million more healthcare workers.

He made the disclosure at the Benin Airport yesterday when he was received back home after his one-year tenure at the WMA which saw medical workers, friends and well-wishers thronged to the airport to give him a rousy welcome.

On his stewardship, he said, “I want to appreciate all those who supported my tenure and we have been able to say that we have made our own inroad into global affairs.

“Importantly, what we have been preaching over time in terms of building resident healthcare systems has now been accepted as a reality. So, all nations of the world are now committing themselves more than ever before as a result of the very strong advocacy that we advance to ensure that they get committed to building resident healthcare systems.

“That’s more important for us in Africa where we have very fragile health systems. Along with that is the issue of building resident health workforce. You cannot have a healthcare system that does not boast of the requisite number of healthcare workers.

“Africa today has a deficit of about 5.3 million healthcare workers to be in a serious position to attain universal health coverage.

“Globally, we need 10 million more workers but out of this, 5.3 million workers are needed in Africa so in the light of the huge brain drain we have more responsibility to ensure that our governments are taken to account to build more retentive mechanism to ensure that our own healthcare workers, physicians and other health professionals stay in their countries rather than encouraging them to move because of the very indecent working conditions that we have.”

He said that there is a need for African countries and governments to create an enabling working environment and competitive wages for medical workers to check health care workers’ migration from Africa.

 For Nigeria, Enabulele said, “The Nigerian government does not need to reinvent the wheel, the solutions have since been there, all they need to do is to dust up the files and get on board those progressive solutions and advice that have been given to them a long time ago.

“I was a member of the 2014 National Conference and we also advanced progressive policies to transform not only the health system but the Nigerian state but we have more often than not been an observance of these resolutions in the breach,” he said.

He said his tenure as WMA president has proven that Africa has what it takes to be heard globally.