The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), has expressed concern over the menace of brain drain in Nigeria thereby killing the health sector.

It disclosed that about 10,296 doctors now practice in United Kingdom, making Nigeria having the third highest foreign doctors in that country.

Besides,the medical practitioners raised the alarm over increasing maternal and infant mortality in Ekiti state,said to have caused geometric loss of doctors to other facilities and movements to foreign countries.

The NMA Chairman, Ekiti chapter, Dr. Babatunde Rosiji, said this in Ado Ekiti, on Monday, at a news conference heralding the 2022 Physicians’ Week.

Rosiji who commented on Brain-Drain syndrome said: “Statistics by General Medical Council, which licenses and maintains official register of medical practitioners in UK showed that 200 Nigerian trained doctors were licensed between August 31,2022 to September 30,2022.

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“The statistics also showed that about 1,307 doctors trained in Nigeria were licensed in UK as Nigeria continues to battle one of the worst situations of brain drain in history. In overall, 10,296 doctors who obtained their degrees in Nigeria currently practice in UK”.

The NMA leader also noted that every secondary health centres and specialists hospitals in Ekiti must have at least nine doctors, but the highest they have is two per hospital,stressing that they are supposed to have 276 doctors, but having just 85.

“We need about 195 doctors to run the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, but we only have 95. Why should people blame doctors for the monster the government has created? For the primary, we need 32 but only have 12 and four of them will be retiring soon”he stressed.

The NMA boss regretted that four local governments in Ekiti have no doctors to oversee their primary healthcare centres, which he said also contributed to high diseases index
in the state.

Rosiji appealed to Nigerians to be patriotic in 2023 by voting for a candidate that can rescue , rather than placing high premium on vote buying and other pecuniary gains that can sway their positions wrongly.

He said” the era of blind loyalty was over. Let us all patiently wait to hear the plans of the presidential candidates for the health sector before pitching our political support for the one with the best health policy”.

The NMA urged the state government to implement hazard allowance to medical doc- tors on its payroll, regretting that Nigerian medical practitioners remained one of the poorly paid globally, and that the trend must
change.

He said his members may resort to indus- trial action, if the state government fails to pay backlog of salaries owed members and implementing payment of other allowances due to them.