Doctor to patient ratio in Kaduna State is about one to 4,000, a huge distance from the ratio of one to 600 recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Kaduna State chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has said.
The association which decried shortage of doctors in the state, disclosed that there were about 2,000 practicing physicians in public and private facilities and across all tiers of health care services.
Addressing newsmen yesterday in Kaduna on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference, the chairman of the Association, Dr. Adbulrahman Shehu said although the state government had taken steps in recent years to bridge the gap by ensuring accreditation of the state medical school for training of more doctors and recently conducting interview for doctors, the challenge had remained that of internal brain drain because of poor pay for doctors in the state, for which reason doctors were constantly moving to the federal institutions and other neighbouring states.
“While we commend the state government for being regular with payment of workers’ salaries, we must put on record that, doctors in Kaduna are among the worst paid,” he said.
Earlier, the President of NMA, Dr. Mike Ogirima, described as very poor the health care financing in Nigeria, saying the country was lagging behind in its budget allocation to the health sector.
