During the induction ceremony of 23 newly graduated professional nurses at Elizade University, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Kayode Ijadunola, emphasized the importance of creating a conducive environment for doctors and health workers in Nigeria.
He expressed concern over the trend of professionals leaving the country for better opportunities abroad.
Despite acknowledging the freedom of individuals to seek better prospects elsewhere, he urged the government to focus on retaining trained professionals by providing competitive salaries and favorable work conditions.
Ijadunola emphasized the need for both federal and state governments to prioritize the welfare of healthcare workers to address the challenge of retaining talent within the country.
He said, “Globally, there is a shortage of health manpower, whether they are doctors, nurses or any other profession in health-related areas, which was made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic where a significant number of health workers retired, they just left the profession and walked away, due to the mental fatigue they burn out and all the things that accompanied the COVID-19 era.
“A number of them left, and people are looking for doctors and nurses all over the world, so whatever we produced, and we don’t treat them well, the pay, conditions of service, security in the system, and other things.
“Sometimes when our governments say they want to stop professional doctors from leaving, they want to attract the ones from outside from coming back, it is the mirage of the century because the ones at home are leaving and you are saying you want to bring back the ones from outside who are so afraid of the security situation
“I will be happy if, in two years, 10 per cent of those who graduated today are still here because as we are producing them, they are leaving; that is the pain of our society today. The facilities where we work are not conducive, the equipment is not there, the environment is toxic, and health workers remain the target of the bandit.”
Ijadunola believes the National Assembly’s proposal to keep health workers in Nigeria for five years after graduation is unrealistic. The significant investment in training these professionals would be difficult to recover .
Professor Omolola Irinoye, Vice Chancellor of Achievers University, echoes this sentiment, pointing out that low salaries and subpar working conditions drive health workers to seek better opportunities abroad.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s healthcare system has struggled to provide adequate compensation and environments for its professionals, leading to a brain drain .
Irinoye highlighted “People must be paid to commensurate with the nature of the work they do and whenever you see anybody doing shifting duties, you distort their rhythm. What people do in many places is compensate people for the nature of the work they do. People are running out because we are not meeting their essential needs. Where they are running to is not as if they are doing free jobs; they get reasonable money that can enable them to meet their family needs.
“Our facilities are problematic. Things people need to work on are not there. If the health professionals work according to their training, we won’t have anybody working in our health facilities again. What we have in our laboratories is not available in the hospitals, making them improvise.
“We have hospitals without enough bedsheets. There are hospitals without electricity. I have been to a teaching hospital where nurses used the light on their phones to attend to patients. The working environment is not good enough for medical personnel.
“We have to look at our human resources, we have to look at our facilities. We have hospitals without water and we are talking about infection control. We have to do a lot of things that will reduce people going to hospitals at the community level to reduce infection and chronic diseases.”
