Brain drain: MDCAN laments shortage of doctors

The Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has called for an increase in medical students to mitigate the impact of the brain drain of doctors in the country.

The President of MDCAN, Dr Victor Makanjuola, said Nigeria is able to retain just 30 per cent of the 4,000 doctors that graduated from medical schools annually but if the number is increased, there could be more doctors to mitigate the low level of doctor-to-patient ratio.

Makanjuola during an education summit on Wednesday in Abuja admitted that this would not stop the drain but would increase the population of doctors in the country.

“We need to maintain good medical education in the country while at the same time maintaining good service delivery to the people of Nigeria. We can only do this if we increase the number of medical doctors that we are producing.

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“We retain just 30 to 35 per cent of those we train on an annual basis. If we are retaining 30 per cent of about 4,000 produced annually, we are going to go into deeper crises. What we are looking at is if we can find some mechanism for increasing the number to 12,000 or 8,000 because if we retain 30 per cent of this number, it is better than that of 4,000. With this, we can support the system, not optimally but keep the system going.”

He stated that this could be achieved if the federal government increased medical schools while using different methods of teaching as the country is not having adequate staff strength to man the schools.

He added that to stop the brain drain of medical doctors, the government needs to ensure access to basic amenities and security because “at a point, we became targets of kidnappers. They should increase the remuneration of the workers and invest in their training.”