Brain drain robbing Nigeria service of specialists, doctors, warns NPMCN

*Says college battling shortage of new graduates

The President, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN), Ijanikin, Lagos, Prof. Akin Osibogun, has again warned that the country now has shortage of graduate doctors to turn into specialists due to persistent brain drain.

Addressing a media briefing on Tuesday to announce the 41th convocation ceremony of the NPMCN, which will be held on September 21, Osibogun said brain drain in the health sector is taking away the manpower Nigeria needs to ensure delivery of quality healthcare.

According to him, the college is not excepted as the pool of available doctors to train into specialists continues to dwindle as graduate doctors are embracing the ‘Japa’ syndrome to travel overseas for better working conditions and financial packages.

He said the teaching hospitals are also feeling the pinch as there exists a shortage of resident doctors in the country.

“Some of our sister countries in West Africa are already poaching our medical manpower by offering higher pay.

“This is aside the 11,000 Nigerian doctors in the United Kingdom, the 12,000 in the United States and Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world. We have roughly between 30,000 and 40, 000 Nigerian doctors in different parts of the world,” he said.

Osibogun said for Nigeria to address its brain drain challenges, the country need to train and retain more doctors.

“We need to ramp up our training processes, and we also need to put in place, largely on the side of the government, mechanisms to ensure that skilled manpower remains in the country,” he stressed.

He urged the Federal Government to deploy financial incentives to retain the nation’s talents, particularly in the health sector as training such professionals in terms of money and efforts can not easily be replicated.

The college president also called on TETFund to recognise the role of the college in training of specialists and support its effort to produce more fellows for the country.

He said the college, saddled with the responsibility of postgraduate medical education in the country, has graduated 8500 specialists.

The college will on September 21 graduate 413 new fellows and 92 doctors of medicine.