Angela Onwuzoo
The National President, Association of Nigerian Private Medical Practitioners, Dr Kayode Adesola has disclosed that the private hospitals in the country are the worst hit by brain drain popularly known as Japa syndrome than the government-owned public hospitals.
He said the japa syndrome had become a major obstacle to accessing quality healthcare in Nigeria amid the economic hardship because the government poaches private doctors whenever its staff exited the system for greener pastures abroad.
Additionally, the ANPMP president said private hospitals are having more challenges of brain drain than public hospitals because the private sector provides about 70 per cent of the healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
The family physician disclosed this when he was featured as a guest on Channels TV’s programme, The Morning Brief.
He said it was regrettable that the population is growing and health workers are diminishing.
Adesola said, “There is one major thing that we are missing out there; in the healthcare delivery system in Nigeria, the private sector provides about 70 per cent.
“ The way we are looking at things, it is not just government hospitals that are affected, private hospitals are more seriously affected by the Japa syndrome than public hospitals.
“The drift has always been that people come into private hospitals and from there, move into government hospitals. I want to tell you that anytime there is a shortage of doctors at public hospitals, the government comes to poach our staff (doctors).
“Currently, Nigeria has a doctor-to-population ratio of one doctor to 8,000 population, instead of one doctor to 600 people as recommended by the World Health Organisation.”
Emphasizing the grave implications of the Japa syndrome on the health system itself, apart from its impact on patients, Adesola noted that about 70 per cent of the health delivery system is continuously eroded due to the massive brain drain in the sector.
“ So if anybody anywhere and people are talking about Japa syndrome, they should come and visit and see what we are going through. It is a very serious matter now.
“A lot of practitioners are either shutting down or trying to only attend to patients within a specific time. We have seen doctors suffering from burnout and sudden death among private practitioners across the country and we cannot do without this group.
“We have the widest spread. The Japa syndrome is taking its toll on the private sector of the health system in Nigeria and we are feeling it. It is time the government paid attention to the Japa syndrome. We don’t have the personnel”, he lamented.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Pate, on Tuesday, lamented that developing countries like Nigeria will continue to lose their highly trained health professionals to developed countries that did not invest in their first professional education.
Pate said about 55, 000 licensed doctors are in the country to attend to the growing population of patients following the exodus of health professionals to hospitals and health facilities abroad.
He also said in the last five years, the country lost about 15,000 to 16,000 doctors to the Japa syndrome while about 17,000 had been transferred.
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