Brain drain: Nigeria lost 1,700 nurses in one month – Rep

Dr Tanko Sununu, Chairman House Committee on healthcare services has said that Nigeria losses over 1,700 nurses in a single month.

Sununu was commenting on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on a proposed bill which seeks to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act 2004 to address the brain drain in the health sector.

The bill mandates Nigerian-trained medical and dental professionals to practise for five years before getting full licence.

He said, “I was shocked when I went for an oversight visit to the Nursing Council of Nigeria. In one month, we lost over 1,700 nurses, that means getting to 17,000 to 18,000 in a year.

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“And if you can recall, I mentioned here sometime back that what we are having and what we are going to have may not likely be a brain drain; I called it a storm.

“COVID-19 has done so much damage on healthcare practice in the country. Over the years the number of casualties we have among healthcare practioners is so much, thereby creating a lot of vacancies.

“Now if you look at providing care, definitely the number we have is grossly inadequate and unacceptable because where we are supposed to have a doctor to 6,000 population, now we are talking about 33,000

“You find out if you go to a general hospital, a doctor is the one running the clinic, running the theatre and taking calls 24hrs, that is why sometimes people say patients were neglected.”