NUC: Nigeria Needs 300,000 Additional Medical Doctors

Emmanuel Addeh

National Universities Commission (NUC) yesterday decried the shortage of medical practitioners in the country, disclosing that Nigeria needs at least 300,000 additional qualified doctors to meet the standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The regulatory agency made the disclosure, even as Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, affirmed in Yenagoa that the vision of his government had always been to produce the highest number of qualified personnel in the country’s medical sector.

NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, who spoke during the maiden matriculation ceremony of Bayelsa Medical University (BMU) in Yenagoa, noted that the phenomenon of shortage of medical personnel in the country had also led to what he described as ‘patient drain’ from Nigeria to other countries.

Rasheed said given the yearly convocation of just 3,000 medical students from Nigerian universities, the country currently has just 40,000 medical doctors, a far cry from what is required to cater for the huge population in the country.

“The existing medical schools in Nigeria produce about 3,000 medical doctors every year with less than 40,000 registered medical doctors practicing in Nigeria. The doctor to patient ratio in Nigeria is about one to 3,500.

“What this means is that we need about 300,000 doctors to meet the World Health Organisation’s recommended doctor/patient ratio of 1 to 600.

“It is also common knowledge that the Nigerian health sector continues to face myriads of challenges, chief among which is the brain drain syndrome occasioned by an absence of the enabling environment for medical practitioners to thrive.

“In the more recent past, the system has also witnessed a significant patient drain due to medical tourism to countries with more robust healthcare system.