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To address financial inequality among physicians, regardless of their location, institution, or position, doctors affiliated with the Nigerian Medical Association are advocating for universal and equitable compensation for all medical professionals.
They highlighted that pay structures vary significantly based on location, institution, and role. This discrepancy creates a fragmented remuneration system that is neither sustainable nor competitive on a global scale, ultimately discouraging young and talented healthcare professionals from entering or remaining in the workforce.
In his speech marking National Physicians’ Week, Professor Baba Audu, president of the Nigerian Medical Association, emphasized that the mass exodus of doctors from Nigeria is not merely a result of individual choices but rather a consequence of a system that fails to provide fair compensation and career satisfaction for physicians.
Professor Audu, represented by Dr Happy Adedapo at the 2024 Physicians’ Week media briefing in Ibadan, declared that fair and universal remuneration is a foundational component of sustainable healthcare, saying fair remuneration is more than just a salary figure.
“Because of the nature of healthcare delivery and the service doctors render, it makes more sense to make it (remuneration) uniform, irrespective of whether you are working with the federal government, the state government, or the local government.
“The bedrock of healthcare delivery in any nation is at the local government, where you have the primary care centres. Patients do not need to come to University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, for example, to treat ordinary malaria. At that point, one could easily treat certain minor ailments.
“But when there is high pay parity between the local government doctor and the doctor working with the federal government, as we are experiencing now, the healthcare workforce will be depleted in favour of the tertiary centres.
“I have it on record that at least 35% of the resident doctors in a tertiary institution in this state are planning to even still leave to take up spaces in federal government institutions all over the country. This is aside from those who are planning to leave the country.
“In the past three inductions into the medical profession that I have attended at the UCH, Ibadan, over 90% of those doctors that were inducted said they are planning to leave the country. A class has a WhatsApp group where they post information on where there are job opportunities.
“If not for the statutory one-year housemanship, a lot of them would have left right from the induction ground. That’s the truth.
“In the last three months, Lautech Teaching Ogbomoso advertised to get house officers but only one person put in an application. And the reason is not perfect. The condition of service is depressing, especially when you get to hear what your contemporaries in federal teaching hospitals are earning.
“Strike or no strike, the private facilities cater for over 65% of the health needs of Nigerians. It’s so unfortunate that so many of them are shutting down because of the cost of running businesses in Nigeria—multiple taxation and cost of energy.
“To stay afloat, the tendency is for them to start cutting corners. I just pray that we will not fall victim to this failure of the system. Nobody is shielded from whatever adverse outcome that might arise from our nonchalant means of addressing the situation.”
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