Over 1000 medical, dental consultants have left Nigeria –MDCAN 

The MDCAN President, Professor Mohammad Aminu Mohammad, raised the concern while briefing journalists on Tuesday.

He said, “Study conducted in January 2024 showed that there were only 6,137 medical and dental consultants in Nigeria, 3,475 of them being hospital consultants while 2,668 were honorary consultants.

“The study further found that 1,106 medical consultants had migrated to other countries within the last 5 years and 1,799 out of the 6,137 (29.31%) were 55 years and above. This means that nearly a third of the present, albeit inadequate number of consultants will retire within the next 5 years. This is without taking into account that many other consultants may exit the civil service by some other means other than the obvious reasons stated above.

“This bleak scenario has inevitably enormous and far-reaching consequences to healthcare service provision, research and medical education.”

Further giving an analysis of the situation,  Mohammad said the performance statistics of MDCAN include, “111,240 registered practitioners—92,883 medical and 5,500 dental, 11,634 additional qualifications registered, 36 registered alternative medicine practitioners. 60,411 annual practicing licences were renewed in 2024, and 114 housemanship training centres accredited consisting of 43 federal, 49 state, 15 privates, and seven military.

“There are also 42 fully accredited medical schools, 11 partially accredited medical schools, nine fully accredited dental schools, two partially accredited dental schools and 5,402 house officers trained via the Centralized Housemanship Portal from 2022 to 2024.”