Enugu NMA seeks review of retirement policy to address brain drain

The Enugu State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has appealed to Governor Peter Mbah to review the retirement policy for health professionals and medical consultants to solve the Japa and brain drain challenges in the state’s health sector.

State Chairman of the Association, Dr. Sunday Okafor, and the General Secretary, Dr. Chima Edoga, in a letter addressed to the governor which they made available to The Guardian, also said that doing so was one of the surest and ingenious ways of addressing and retaining the needed/valuable skilled health-care workers without any additional financial cost or burden on the state.

They praised the governor for the impact made in the sector within his tenure so far, including ongoing A Type 2 Primary Health Centre (PHC) in the 260 wards of the state, ongoing Specialist hospital at Ranger’s Avenue, ongoing infrastructural upgrade at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital Parklane as well as securing accreditation for about three colleges of Nursing and Midwifery in Enugu State, among others.

“While we savor these giant strides your Excellency, we are greatly concerned about the dearth of healthcare workforce in the state, as a result of the worrisome brain drain, following internal and external migration of health workers in the state and the country at large,” they said.

They told the governor that available data shows that the doctor-patient ratio in Nigeria currently stands at an alarming 1:9083, far from the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended 1:600. The NMA leaders added that this index is even worsening by the day as skilled healthcare workers emigrate in their droves. They said that the consequence of this worrisome trend is that the few patriotic ones who chose to stay are often exposed to excessive work hours.

leading to burnout syndrome heightened risk of medical errors that jeopardise patient safety, and increased case fatalities.

They added: “More importantly, the older skilled healthcare workers are often more valuable to the system than their younger counterparts. Interestingly and fortunately, they have a lesser propensity to emigrate on the basis of push factors than their younger counterparts. We have observed that in a six-month period, more than 50 per cent of employed skilled healthcare workers emigrated either internally or externally.

“The state is often left with the few patriotic older ones who have spent years of their civil service lives building the system and training the new generation of health professionals in the state and the country. Unfortunately, the general retirement age often catches up with them in the face of a severe shortage of skilled healthcare professionals, and when their services are needed most. The big question is how many of the skilled healthcare professionals would be available to man the very numerous state-of-the-art health facilities being erected across the state at all levels of care?”

The NMA officials added that as the sector grapples with these high levels of skilled health-care workers emigration and brain drain in the country, “it is expedient that certain reforms are strategically and urgently made to address this pressing issue in Enugu’s health sector.”