Yesterday, Saturday, I was at Hetta Medical Center in Sango Ota, Ogun State, to see a doctor because I needed to know what exactly was wrong with my health.

I arrived at exactly 10 am and met the receptionist, to whom I handed my card so she could look for my file in their database. Afterwards, I took a seat at the reception, staring at their plasma TV while waiting to be called to see the doctor. There were other people there as well, waiting to see the doctor—many more than I was used to seeing there.

I wasn't attended to until after one hour when my name was called to meet a nurse at the back of the reception who checked my vitals (blood pressure and body temperature). After recording them, she ordered me to sit and wait to see the doctor.

It was another hour and a half, around 12:30 pm, before I was finally called to go see the doctor.

While waiting impatiently at the reception before I was called to go see the doctor, I heard a man beside me voice his displeasure to the matron who passed by, saying that he had been there for more than two hours and had yet to see any doctor. He inquired from the woman what the problem was, as this wasn't the norm since he had been visiting the hospital.

The woman apologized profusely and explained that they were badly in need of qualified doctors at the moment. She said two of their doctors had just traveled to the UK with their families a few days ago, leaving them with only one doctor at the moment (whom she was certain was also preparing to leave very soon). She went on to lament how this has been the trend with doctors in their hospital and other private and government hospitals for some time now. Once they are employed, in less than a year or two, they are out of the country.

She said the shortage or lack of qualified doctors in both private and government hospitals is a challenge that is really biting hard these days.

And right there, it started to dawn on me the negative effect of brain drain in our medical sector. Something needs to be done as soon as possible before this becomes a national crisis.

This is what should be baffling our National Assembly and not changing our national anthem.

Health is wealth

yuskel:


And right there, it started to dawn on me the negative effect of brain drain in our medical sector. Something needs to be done as soon as possible before this becomes a national crisis.

This is what should be baffling our National Assembly and not changing our national anthem.

What solutions would you proffer?

Why ask him for the solution. The people who are in power and the policy makers should answer that question. Don't shift issue defending what is obvious

And if you had asked that matron about the pay packages of those doctors while they were around, you would have marveled at the peanut they were being paid.

The private sector in Nigeria is contributing significantly to the exodus of doctors and healthcare workers from the country with their poor pay packages and I'll treatment of health workers.

It's high time government looked into how the private business owners treat their workers. If the government really want to solve the brain drain problem in the health sector and unemployment generally, then there's need to ensure that the private sector pays same wage to workers as government workers. This is the norm in most countries of the world!

Government must also look at other issues responsible for the brain drain like insecurity, bad economy, lack of basic social amenities and the rest. Solving that problem requires a holistic approach.

Our leaders need to do away with the mindset of earning forex through training and exporting of our healthcare personnel! Instead, we should be thinking about how to make our own healthcare system attractive to other nationals. We'll earn more through health tourism by people from other countries than by sending out our professionals with the hope that they'll earn forex by returning hard currencies to Nigeria! That's a backward mindset!

Let's revamp our healthcare system holistically and market same to the rest of the world. We'll earn more by doing that.

ChybuzzDD:


What solutions would you proffer?

It's simple, and it's the responsibility of the government. They all are leaving for a reason which we all know. So it's up to the government to make available what it is they are seeking in overseas.

Chikena!