Professor of nursing, Adesola Ogunfowokan, has disclosed that the high rate of Nigerian nurses migrating abroad for better opportunities may severely hamper the country’s nurse-to-population ratio by 2030, stressing that the situation will further put pressure on the critical healthcare deficit.

While disclosing that 127,256 nurses left the country between 2017 and 2024, Ogunfowokan, who is the head of the Department of Nursing Science at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, stressed that the high exodus of nurses would continue to be on the rise if urgent measures are not taken.

The nursing professor stated this while delivering the keynote address at the fifth induction ceremony into the Nursing Profession at the University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo State, with the theme: “Nigerian Nurses’ Migration: Brain Drain or Brain Gain.”

According to her, factors pushing Nigerian healthcare professionals out of the country include low wages, an unstable economy, dangerous working conditions, and a poorly funded healthcare system.

Ogunfowokan maintained that as long as foreign countries offer attractive salaries, better employment contracts, and greater health safety, Nigeria and other African countries would continue to face emigration and brain drain crises among highly skilled individuals.

Ogunfowokan said emigration of nurses might not completely be a bad idea, as it is a global phenomenon and it can bring benefits such as “research collaboration, remittances to family members, friends, alma mater, health screening for citizens, and overseas institutions, having MOUs with Nigerian institutions. Ever since nurses have been migrating, the so-called gains have not really been evident in the country.”

The Vice Chancellor of UNIMED, Prof. Ebunoluwa Adejuyigbe, who was represented by Prof. Ezekiel Adebayo, congratulated the inductees and urged them to be good ambassadors of the institution.

The Director of Nursing Services, Ministry of Health, Ondo State, Mrs Mary Aliu, while delivering the remarks of the Dean, Faculty of Nursing, UNIMED, Prof. Abimbola Oluwatosin, maintained that nursing had become one of the most sought-after careers in Nigeria as in other parts of the world.