NMA Says Doctors in Ogun Public Hospitals Overworked, Demands Fresh Appointments
Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has warned that health workers, including doctors and nurses in public hospitals in Ogun state are now restive and depressed.
According to, NMA, health workers are being overworked due to an acute shortage of staff following the massive migration of doctors, nurses and other health workers abroad.
The state NMA Chairman, Dr. Kunle Ashimi who made this known in his new year message, appreciated the Abiodun administration for increasing allocation in the state’s 2024 budget to the health sector.
But he asked both Federal and Ogun state governments to employ an appropriate number of doctors and other health workers to public hospitals which are being renovated or upgraded.
He promised that doctors in the state public hospitals would continue to put in their best to the limit of their capacity.
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We look forward to Ogun State and Federal government (Federal Medical Center Abeokuta) addressing the shortages by employing the adequate number of doctors to man the health facilities around the state in the shortest possible time to foster the cordial relationship between our association and government and to prevent avoidable industrial disharmony, he noted.
Ashimi, however, lamented that the unabating exodus of healthcare workers abroad has given rise to worsening healthcare indices as well as wanton loss of lives.
He stressed that factors that trigger the exodus of healthcare providers like inflation and insecurity continue to surge daily rather than being tackled by the government at all levels.
Available statistics show that almost all the government health institutions are battling health worker shortages as they cannot cope with the high number of patients that throng the government hospitals.
Findings by PUNCH Healthwise indicated that approximately 1,197 Nigerian-trained doctors moved to the United Kingdom since May 29, 2023, to date.
According to the register of the General Medical Council of the UK, Nigeria is set to overtake Pakistan and become the country with the second-highest number of foreign-trained doctors in the UK. Currently, India remains the country with the highest number of foreign-trained doctors in the UK.
Though about 1,197 Nigerian-trained doctors were licensed between May 29, 2023, and December 1, 2023, the total number of Nigerian doctors licensed to practice in the UK is now 12,198.
Speaking further, Ashimi said the country’s health sector may lose more than 50 percent of her skilled healthcare workforce by the end of 2025.
