Doctors are facing serious burnout on their jobs, but the problems remains ignored to a large extent, says the Association of Resident Doctors in the country’s capital, Abuja.
The burnout—a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack of sense of personal accomplishment—has been linked to the pressure of clinical medicine, specific job, the pressure of life and work, the conditioning of medical education and the leadership skills of their immediate supervisors.
Resident doctors, who are required to be physically resident in hospitals, are the worst hit.
The association says duties of physicians put them at risk of varying health challenges from hypertension, anxiety, and psychosis to even drug and substance abuse and ultimately suicide.
“We are made to attend to varying number of patients on daily basis and work for over 24hours straight in many instances just to get the work done,” it told a briefing in Abuja on Monday.
“This has a direct consequence on the quality of services rendered and make us prone to mistakes which are avoidable if things are done well.”
The association has scheduled physicians’ burnout as a topical issue to be considered in its ongoing annual health week and scientific conference, alongside current management of clinical depression and mental health, insisting that neglect for mental health is a threat to society.
Doctors in the FCT are under pressure to deal with growing patient load, with many on call duty spending up to 48 hours at a stretch at work—and locum doctors paid as little as N50,000 a month, a pay the association described as “embarrassing.”
“People are leaving and a whole lot of doctors or healthworkers are not being employed to fill these spaces,” Dr Roland Aigbovo, president of FCT chapter of ARD, told Daily Trust.
With more than 80,000 doctors registered by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria as at September, he said, only 25,000 of them are practising in Nigeria.
“The number of patients is increasing, Abuja population is exploding, health practitioners are leaving the country and new staff are not being employed, and we are made to cater to the increasing [number of] patients.
“This also makes us prone to making mistakes, not because you don’t know what you are doing but once you are exhausted, you are prone to making mistakes.”
He cited examples of doctors on weekend call duty working from 8am on a Saturday to 8am the next Monday.
“We all are humans. No matter how strong you are, you are prone to making mistakes, and once that mistake is made, no one wants to know whether you were stressed.”
Few studies have considered the extent of burnout among Nigerian doctors, and they report a dearth of information about it. Other studies suggest up to 50% of American doctors experience burnout.
“Physicians’ burnout in the US cannot be compared to that of Nigeria,” said Aigbovo. “We don’t even have any policy in place to restrict the number of working hours for every work in the country.
“I am particular about that of healthworkers because we deal with lives. Any mistake could lead to the death of a patient and that’s why this should be taken seriously.”
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