Members of the House of Representatives have been informed that Nigeria faces the risk of dealing with hospitals without doctors, nurses and other skilled health workers within the next two years.

Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of teaching hospitals raised the alarm during the 2025 budget defence session before the House Committee on Health Institutions, chaired by Mr Patrick Umoh.

They noted that despite the Federal Government’s investment in health infrastructure, tertiary health hospitals were facing threats of becoming empty as their workers had been leaving in droves due to uninspiring remuneration and poor pay packages.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof Wasiu Adeyemo, and the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Prof Jesse Abiodun, were in attendance at the parley on Monday.

Adeyemo called on the authorities to act fast to address the situation, noting: “People resign, retire not even retirement, resignation almost every day. In the next one or two years, we are going to have all our hospitals empty. We need to do something about the remuneration of all health care workers.

“Otherwise, the government is putting a lot of money into infrastructure, and we are going to have empty hospitals. The major reason why people leave is for economic reasons. Consultants are earning less than $1,000.”

Giving details of the hospital’s 2024 budget performance, he said they had a total budget of N19.2 billion, out of which personnel had N13.57 billion and a total overhead of N33.2 million.

He added: “In terms of performance and utilisation, total overhead was 100 per cent as of December; for total personnel, performance was 91 per cent, but for the capital project 45 per cent. So outstanding is 55 per cent. November and December are released today we will cover maybe about 85 per cent.”

Responding to an observation by members of the Committee on Personnel Performance, Adeyemo said they had 95 per cent personnel performance because of payment of benefits and other activities because of resignation and retirements in the year.

Similarly, Prof. Jesse Abiodun lamented the delay in releasing budgeted funds to his hospital, which he said had adversely affected its operations. Giving the details of UCH’s 2024 budget, he said it had a capital appropriation of N5,593,110,394.

He, however, said only 38 per cent of the funds were released leaving a balance of 72 per cent. Umoh charged the CMDs of teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres (FMCs) to be thorough in their presentations in order to provide a clear picture of their situations.