Ngige: Nothing Wrong with Doctors Leaving Nigeria, They ‘ll Return Better Equipped

Funmi Ogundare

All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential aspirant and Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, yesterday described the issue of brain drain and migration of medical doctors out of the country as not totally a bad situation, saying they would come back home better equipped with knowledge to make the desired impact in the country.

Ngige, who was a guest on ‘The Morning Show’ on Arise News Channel, yesterday stressed that there was nothing wrong with doctors leaving Nigeria.

He argued: “This is not a phenomenon that is new in Nigeria. By 1982 and 1984, our doctors were moving to Saudi Arabia and United Kingdom. It was not a new thing. By 1990, they were moving to the United States. These countries need our doctors because they are well trained.

“Our medical doctors and consultants are the best. With the slide of the naira. When I was in the medical school, it was two dollars to one naira. But when I was graduating, it became 78 kobo to one dollar and with Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), it moved to five dollars. Viz-a-viz the earning power locally and abroad, it is a thing the doctors can’t resist and they moved in the 80s and 90s.

“What I am saying is that it is not all that bad in such a situation. Those doctors and consultants came back with better knowledge while some came back with equipment. What am saying is that all hope is not lost.”

Responding to a question on doctor-patient ratio and whether the country has been able to meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards, the minister said so far, no country in the world had been able to meet except Austria that is closer to it.

However, he said Nigeria should be able to deploy its doctors appropriately especially to the rural areas.

He said: “I asked the Nigeria Medical Association              (NMA) if we have deployed the ones we have here appropriately? The answer is no. Seventy per cent of doctors in Nigeria are in urban cities.

“Some of them are unemployed and I am saying that if we deploy these people properly in the rural areas and pay them rural allowances, the doctor/patient ratio would not be noticed.

“If we deploy all our NYSC doctors, in the Primary Health Centre (PHC), then the basic healthcare system would have gone up. Deployment is another issue. Why should people come to the urban centres and are not employed anywhere and you are employed as ad hoc staff?

“Don’t forget that these doctors were trained with tax payers’ money and they were paying N80,000 in a term,” Ngige stressed.

Speaking on the ASUU strike, he expressed concern that conciliation has failed between the federal government and the union, adding that most of the things in the 2009 agreement are not implementable.

“When the unions come to me, it means their employers have failed, my office is to serve as a conciliator between workers and employers. So when you see ASUU coming too, it means conciliation has failed too in education and once they come, if am unable, I should send them to National Industrial Court for their employers to adjudicate for them.

“So, most of the time my job is to listen to the complaints of the parties and take document from the ministry of finance and pass it on to ASUU. For ASUU, the document they will hold is 2009 agreement which was not signed by this administration. A lot of the things there are not implementable,” Ngige said.