Iran Press/ Africa: In an exclusive interview with Iran Press News Agency, the President of the Association of Nigeria's Resident Doctors, Dr. Mohammad Nur Ghazali, said according to the World Health Organisation, several doctors to patients every 600 people in a country should have one medical doctor, but in Nigeria where there are more than 220 million people, one doctor sees more than 9000 patients, and the number of the doctors remaining in the country is only 10,000 as a result of the migration of the doctors to other countries especially USA, Saudi Arabia, and Europe.
"Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that are contributing to that. Issues that have to do with remuneration, that is, interns of salary packages, people feel that going abroad is better. The salary structure outside the country is more parable than we currently have. And that is why you see a massive exodus of people (doctors)." said Dr. Mohammad Nur Ghazali. He also mentioned insecurity challenges and lack of facilities as parts of the factors that made many Nigerian doctors leave for abroad.
In April 2022, the President Nigerian Medical Association, Professor Innocent Ujah, said more than 9000 medical doctors left the shores of the country in search of green pastures in the United Kingdom, USA, and Canada in only two years.
In an article published by the Guardian newspaper in Nigeria in August 2021, Professor Oladapo Ashiru, President of the Academy of Medicine Specialities of Nigeria, was quoted saying their research revealed that 20,000 Nigerian medical doctors are working in America.
Many people believe if the federal government of Nigeria was to make the working conditions of doctors competitive as in other parts of the world, they would not feel compelled to search for greener pastures. This step would help to tackle the problem of lack of enough medical doctors, which causes massive death in the country's hospitals.
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