By Ayo Oyoze Baje
According to Professor Innocent Ujah, the President of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Nigeria lost over 9,000 medical doctors to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States of America between 2016 and 2018. In fact, no fewer than 727 medical doctors trained in Nigeria relocated to the United Kingdom alone between December 2021 and May 2022.
He
made this shocking statement during the Maiden NMA Annual Lecture Series
earlier in the year. The event was held in Abuja. The theme of this year’s
lecture is ‘Brain Drain and Medical Tourism: The Twin evil in Nigeria’s Health
System.’
Are you alarmed by this saddening situation that has the best brains in the medical field jetting out to greener pastures far beyond our shores? You should be and that is because the loss left Nigeria with only 4.7 per cent of its specialists to service the healthcare needs of over 200 million people!
