The National Association of Resident Doctors, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Chapter, has advocated for improved welfare and enhanced remuneration to tackle the alarming rate of brain drain in the health sector.
Vice-President of the association, Dr. Badmus Kabir, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Zaria, that brain drain, known as ‘Japa Syndrome’, has been one of the major issues depleting human resources in Nigeria’s health sector.
Kabir noted with dismay that the depletion of human resources, which affects access to healthcare services at tertiary health facilities was becoming a challenge to average Nigerians.
The union leader noted that two years back, NARD members in ABUTH were over 500, but that the register has depleted to a little above 400 members because of migration.
He explained that the figure excluded doctors who had exited residency training or those who transferred their services to other health facilities.
Kabir said he is a Senior Registrar at the Department of Anaesthesia, ABUTH, which had about 18 senior registrars, but that five out of them have left Nigeria within two years.
“Two transferred their service from ABUTH to another part of the country where they felt safer and the scenario is worse in some departments where you have only two or three young doctors,’’ he added.
Kabir further decried the increasing number of young doctors undergoing training leaving ABUTH in the last two years against what was obtained in the past when senior doctors were the ones leaving
He added that the ‘Japa Syndrome’ was extending down the ladder, as more young doctors were in the process of leaving.
Kabir said it is not healthy for the healthcare system; adding, “It is causing serious excess workloads on the doctors across Nigeria and in the last month, NARD lost four members due to excess workload”.
He added that besides the doctors experiencing excess workload, the patients who are at the receiving end also suffer a lot.
Kabir explained that with the reduction of manpower at the health facility, patients’ first point of contact at teaching hospitals are younger doctors who take cognisance of what is wrong and then inform their senior colleagues.
The union leader urged the government and relevant stakeholders to improve welfare and enhance remuneration to tackle the alarming rate of brain drain in the health sector.
He added that looking at it from the perspective that doctors are leaving the country because they are too ambitious was not correct.
According to him, some of the reasons doctors leave the country are due to poor remuneration, security challenges, job satisfaction and to get more training to enable them to compete with their contemporaries in other climes.
“Doctors have been living on the same salary scale since 2009 in spite of the harsh economic realities in the country, hence the agitation by NARD for an increase in wages,’’ Kabir said.
The union leader said over 70 per cent of their members who were on grade level three and four of the consolidated medical salaries did not receive their August salaries.
The Public Relations Officer of ABUTH, Mrs. Aisha Abdulkadir, confirmed the development to NAN.
However, Abdulkadir said that she does not have the detailed figure of nurses and doctors who had left the facility due to the Japa syndrome.
(NAN)
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