Nigeria has registered more than 130,000 doctors. Only about 55,000 are still here but the rest, they have left. In the last five years alone, no fewer than 16,000 Nigerian doctors emigrated, most to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
What then remains is a healthcare system that is barely holding together. Nigeria’s current doctor-to-patient ratio sits at roughly one doctor for every 3,600 to 4,000 people, against the WHO’s recommended threshold of one per 600. In some facilities the real-world figure is even worse. One consultant psychiatrist put the ratio at one doctor for more than 10,000 patients.
The doctors who stay behind are not even doing much better. Resident doctors are increasingly battling burnout, anxiety, stress and depression from overwhelming workloads. The people responsible for treating Nigeria’s mental health crisis are developing one themselves.
This is especially disturbing considering that more than 40 million Nigerians suffer from mental health disorders and about 85 per cent of them have no access to mental healthcare.
Nigeria currently has fewer than 150 psychiatrists for a population of over 220 million. One hundred and fifty. For a country absorbing the daily psychological weight of poverty, insecurity, and violence, that number is quickly becoming a national emergency.
Work that should be done by four psychiatrists is now handled by one or two. Junior and senior registrars complete their specialist training and leave before building any meaningful careers within Nigeria.
What is unfortunate about this situation is their reasons for leaving is something everyone in the country can relate to which includes poor remuneration, delayed salaries, impossible patient loads, inadequate equipment, and an unstable economic environment. The countries receiving them offer the opposite of every item on that list.
The NMA President has called on government to improve salaries, invest in infrastructure, expand training, and offer incentives for working in underserved areas. But as there are no immediate implementations, doctors are still leaving.
Nigeria built a medical education system capable of producing world-class doctors but cannot even keep them. If things continue as they are, the numbers of doctors will keep falling and 220 million people will suffer it.
