The Nasarawa State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has called on the state government to introduce car and housing loans to curtail the continued relocation of medical doctors abroad for greener pastures.
Nasarawa State NMA Chairman Peter Attah gave the advice at a news conference to mark the 2022 Physicians’ Week on Tuesday in Lafia.
According to him, the association is currently compiling the number of doctors that have left the state for overseas in the last two years, with a view to advising the government appropriately.
Attah said that the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, and Nasarawa State Hospitals Management Board, had replaced more than 60 doctors that had resigned and left for overseas.
“But as I speak to you now, more than 40 of the replaced doctors have resigned and left for better offers.
“In July 2022, Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital alone replaced no fewer than 30 doctors, but when they resumed about a month later, more than 10 of them resigned and left.
“In the last quarter of 2020, the state government through the Nasarawa State Hospitals Management Board, employed more than 30 doctors.
“But as I am talking to you now, more than 25 of the newly employed doctors have resigned and left.
“The same scenario of doctors leaving is still the case at the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, the only federal health facility in the state,” Attah said.
He stated that in the last one year, more than 100 doctors had left the state to foreign countries, due to inadequate incentives.
According to him, the shortage of doctors is putting so much pressure on the few ones that have decided to stay to the extent that doctors now prefer to work in the rural areas because of the inadequate health facilities in the towns.
He said that the standard of the World Health Organization is one doctor to 600 people, but the ratio in Nasarawa State is one doctor to more than 20, 000 people.
He said that at the moment, there were no fewer than 550 doctors working at the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, and with the state government, to serve more than one million people.
Attah, however, commended the state government for the regular replacement of the doctors that had left.
According to him, it is better to improve the welfare of doctors to curtail brain drain, than to continue to replace and they still leave after sometime.
He suggested the upward review of the hazard and call-duty allowances and the reduction of taxes being paid by the medical doctors.
Attah also advised the state government to give vehicles and housing loans to the doctors to curtail brain drain.
