Nigeria needs 80 years to meet health workers demand

A profile of the country’s health workforce as at December 2012 showed a shortage of more than 216,200 doctors, 190,150 nurses and 67,630 pharmacists-one of the highest shortages among middle-income countries.With medical schools taking in an average of 2,550 doctors every year, it could take 84 years to train the 282,000 doctors needed for Nigeria’s […]

A profile of the country’s health workforce as at December 2012 showed a shortage of more than 216,200 doctors, 190,150 nurses and 67,630 pharmacists-one of the highest shortages among middle-income countries.
With medical schools taking in an average of 2,550 doctors every year, it could take 84 years to train the 282,000 doctors needed for Nigeria’s 160 million at present, according to World Health Organisation recommendation of 2.3 per 1,000 population.
At least 40 years each are needed to train 338,400 nurses and 84,600 pharmacists, going by World Health Organisation recommendations of 2.3 per 1,000 population.
Current ratios indicate only one doctor for every 2,500 Nigerian, one nurse for every 1,100 or a pharmacist for every 10,000.
The report also notes huge distribution gaps among states-from a density of 51 doctors for every 100,000 people in the FCT to just two doctors for every 100,000 people in Yobe.
Among nurses and midwives, the number of nurses and midwives available for every 100,000 people ranges from 97 in Imo to six in Zamfara.
Delivering a speech on Nigeria’s need for human capacity development, he said the government needed to “cleverly invest” in capacity development and ensure both its actions and result target sustainable development.
The British-funded Partnership for Transforming Health Systems II (PATHS2), which supported the publication of the report by the federal health ministry, notes the shortages mean countless Nigerians are denied access to healthcare.
“What it means is that we must create an enabling environment where any doctor and nurse can go to anywhere in the country and work,” said PATHS2 national programme manager Mike Egboh.
Crises in parts of the country have been blamed for an internal migration of health workers to parts considered safer, especially the southern region, but Egboh said the hiring of health workers on contract basis in some states is also a discouraging factor keeping away workers.
“We have to look at our constitution. Until we remove barriers that create boundaries, we will continue to have that problem,” he told Daily Trust.