No fewer than 5,722 Nigerian doctors who are specialists are practising in the United Kingdom.
Also, no fewer than 1,540 general practitioners made the list of Nigerian doctors in the UK.
These were disclosed through an analysis of the data obtained from the website of the British General Medical Council.
According to the data, 1,228 of the specialists are senior specialists while 4,494 are associate specialists.
The GMC added that 1,540 general practitioners trained in Nigeria are also in the UK while there are a total of 1,968 doctors in training.
The PUNCH reports that the number of Nigeria trained specialists and consultants who migrate have continued to increase over the years.
In September, it was reported that the government of Saudi Arabia organised a recruitment interview for consultants and specialists in Abuja.
The Minister of Labour and employment, Chris Ngige, during his budget defence had proposed a bond of nine years for health workers in a bid to curb brain drain.
Checks by our correspondent showed that at least 264 doctors had been licensed by the UK General Medical Council in the last 53 days, an average of 4.6 Nigerian doctors per day.
A check on the website of the council showed that as regards the number of foreign doctors working in the UK, Nigeria comes third, only behind India and Pakistan which have 30,388 and 15, 962 doctors respectively operating in the UK.
In an interview with The PUNCH, the immediate past president of the Medical and Dental Consultant Association of Nigeria and a current member of the National Executive Council of the association, Prof. Ken Ekilo, explained that one of the major causes was the hostile work environment.
He said, “The Nigerian work environment is hostile to the medical doctors and the Nigerian security situation is hostile to Nigerian citizens. Infrastructure is poor, equipment is obsolete, drugs and supplies are out of stock, and the personnel are few, overworked and underpaid.
“There is no sense of job satisfaction, professional growth or commensurate financial reward. These are the push factors.
“The country’s health care system does not have the capacity to absorb all the health manpower being produced every year. It is only recently that the issue of house officers is being addressed.”
SOURCE : Punch
