The enrolment quota for medical, nursing, and other health schools in Nigeria has surged from 28,000 to 64,000 within the past year, according to Prof. Ali Pate, Minister of Health and Social Welfare. This announcement was made during a Ministerial Sectoral Briefing in Abuja ahead of President Bola Tinubu’s first anniversary on May 29.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports a continuing trend of health workers emigrating due to inadequate equipment, insecurity, poor working conditions, and low salaries. Between 2019 and 2023, over 1,000 medical consultants left Nigeria, with more than 900 resident doctors relocating to Europe in the first nine months of 2023 alone.
To address this, Prof. Pate revealed that the government is increasing enrolment quotas to produce more healthcare workers. He stressed the necessity for the education sector and state governments to enhance infrastructure, training, and tools to support this increase.
The minister also highlighted that 1,400 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) now have skilled birth attendants, and over 2,400 health workers have been recruited to serve in rural areas. Additionally, N25 billion has been disbursed from the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) to 23 states through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA). The remaining states are in the process of meeting the requirements to receive their allocations.
Dr. Tunji Alausa, Minister of State for Health, disclosed that the Federal Government plans to double the number of medical and dental doctors from 5,000 to 10,000, starting from the next academic year with increased admissions into medical and dental institutions.
Alausa emphasized that making the healthcare environment more attractive would help curb the mass exodus of licensed doctors and other health professionals to more developed countries. The government aims to expand opportunities for all health professionals, including pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, community health extension workers, and radiographers, in phases.
“We shall create room to produce more and excess because globally, there is a shortage of health manpower; the shortage is estimated at 18 million personnel,” he stated.
Currently, Nigeria produces approximately 3,000 doctors annually, a figure Alausa described as grossly inadequate. “We need to increase the rate of production of health workers,” he concluded.
