A Professor of nursing, Adesola Ogunfowokan, has revealed that the high rate of Nigerian nurses migrating abroad for better opportunities could severely impact the country’s nurse-to-population ratio by 2030, further increasing pressure on the already critical healthcare shortfall.
While disclosing that 127,256 nurses left the country between 2017 and 2024, Prof. Ogunfowokan, the head of the Department of Nursing Science at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, stressed that the high exodus of nurses will continue to rise if urgent measures are not taken.
The professor made this statement while delivering the keynote address at the 5th 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 that push Nigerian healthcare professionals out of the country include low wages, an unstable economy, hazardous 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 will continue to face emigration and brain drain crises among highly skilled individuals.
He said: “75,000 nurses migrated in 2017, 7,256 left between 2021 and 2022, and 42,000 exited the country between 2022 and 2024. The African and Eastern Mediterranean regions are expected to experience little to no growth in their nurse-to-population ratio between 2023 and 2030.”
Ogunfowokan stated that emigration of nurses might not be entirely a bad idea, as it is a global trend and can offer benefits such as “research collaboration, remittances to family members, friends, alma mater, health screening for citizens, and overseas institutions having MOUs with Nigerian institutions. Since nurses have been migrating, the so-called benefits have not been clearly 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.
“As you go into the world, please represent the institution well and uphold the values UNIMED holds dear,” he said.
On her part, 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 has become one of the most sought-after careers in Nigeria as in other parts of the world.”
