Doctors slam Buhari’s Minister for dismissing brain drain

The National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) has faulted the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire’s remarks that Nigeria has enough doctors.
The association, while describing the statement as irresponsible, claimed that since 2019, the number of migrating doctors in search of greener pastures has tripled, leaving a huge gap in the number of available specialists to attend to patients across the country.

Ehanire, during a briefing two weeks ago, stated that the country has enough doctors because between 2,000 to 3,000 doctors are churned out yearly.
He also said plans are underway for a policy to ensure that each doctor or nurse that leaves is replaced immediately.

But President of the NAGGMDP, Dr. Dokun Noel, said: “We need to sit down and make the environment right for people. Insecurity, poor pay are making people go out. Even with the scarce resources we have here, the emphasis is on curative and we’re not talking on the preventive aspect. All over the world the emphasis is on the preventive aspect because we know curative is very expensive, but you can spend so little to work on the preventive to get a very good result.