THE pictures of medical doctors who thronged the venues of recruitment by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia this week made people to raise alarm that ‘this is brain drain.’
Some analysts asked whether it was not the same Saudi Arabia that members of its royal family came to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan in Nigeria for medical attention. So what happened since then, why hasn’t Nigeria progressed and maintained its excellence in attracting such renowned people?
How come that Nigeria lags behind now that even its own citizens who can afford it prefer to go abroad for medical attention?
Some of the doctors say at times doctors contribute money to buy some items for their work, coupled with poor pay, lack of facilities and so on, make them to want to go abroad.
While the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, kept saying he could replace the resident doctors who are on strike since August 2, ‘because there are many doctors’, it doesn’t seem likely. According to the President of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Professor Innocent Ujah, in Nigeria, one doctor treats about 4,000 people against the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard of one doctor to 600 people.
The NMA President also said the estimated 40,000 doctors treating the 200 million population in Nigeria had been thoroughly depleted because doctors were leaving the country in droves daily.
However, it is this lack of a sense of purpose and corruption that has deteriorated every single sector in this country. The youth are disenchanted and may have lost hope. The ‘lucrative’ jobs of NNPC, CBN and others in this category are usually kept for the children of the big people. And sometimes, such children are not really interested and hardly go to work and feel a salary of N250,000 is paltry! Talk of a minimum wage of N30,000 that most are not being paid.
Besides, according to one doctor, it would seem as if there are many doctors in the cities, some are even looking for jobs, but there are not a lot of doctors in the rural areas. He said even the Primary Healthcare Centres were not manned by doctors but by other health workers.
There are no incentives for them to go to the rural areas. If they get special allowance instead of the paltry N10,000 as one doctor told me, they would go.
In any case, this should shake any government to force it to look inwards and come out with remedies, though the remedy might already be hidden somewhere gathering dust, but the problem is the implementation.
Therefore, it is a long shot because the authorities may not care and it is what has brought us to this sorry state from the University College Hospital, Ibadan days of glory, of Saudi monarchs coming to Nigeria on medical tourism.
However, it is this lack of a sense of purpose and corruption that has deteriorated every single sector in this country. The youth are disenchanted and may have lost hope. The ‘lucrative’ jobs of NNPC, CBN and others in this category are usually kept for the children of the big people. And sometimes, such children are not really interested and hardly go to work and feel a salary of N250,000 is paltry! Talk of a minimum wage of N30,000 that most are not being paid.
Even where the semblance of recruitment occurs, the list of those already recruited may already be prepared so those that participated in whatever process might have done so in vain.
Someone argues that you go to school and come out with a good result. While you are looking for a job, someone enters politics, gets elected, becomes an ‘Honourable Member’ or ‘Distinguished Senator’ and gets all sorts of allowances aside other pecks of office
“And before you know it, he becomes too big to go to the hospital in this country; Nigerian schools are not good enough for his children. And the government expects us to be happy with N-power and farming? I beg your pardon,” he said.
Recently, I watched a programme where a 30-year-old man was said to be looking for a job. So there was a discussion on the need to change the focus of education, where students would graduate with the mind-set of being self-employed and employer of labour, instead of relying on government jobs that are not available. However, even with better facilities and conducive environment, some people would seek for greener postures, much less what obtains now.
Nevertheless, while Nigeria neglects its citizens’ talents and skills, as soon as they go abroad and achieve greatness, the country would be proud and claim them; shamelessly saying they make Nigeria proud. Some would even start listing those people, but the irony is lost on them, because if those people remain in Nigeria, they would never have achieved those feats. There would not be the chance, the encouragement, and the private sector that drives innovation and so on.
After all, there are people who have invented some equipment and those with extraordinary talents roaming the streets, wallowing in despair.
So Nigeria should shed tears as its best brains are leaving the country, but only if it cares. Or it should continue to grin sheepishly as they become famous in other climes at the country’s expense.
