‘Brain-Drain, Poor Wages Increasing Infant, Maternal Mortality in Ekiti’

 Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has described brain-drain and poor remuneration for medical workers as the major twin evils propelling infant and maternal mortality in Ekiti State.

Recently, the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had released a startling revelation that Ekiti is one of the states in the South-west region with the highest incidences of maternal and infant mortality rate, as well as teenage pregnancy.

Responding to the situation, the state NMA Chairman, Dr. Babatunde Rosiji, who spoke in Ado Ekiti, said: “Statistics by the General Medical Council, which licences and maintains official register of medical practitioners in the United Kingdom showed that 200 Nigerian trained doctors were licenced between August 31, 2022, and September 30, 2022.

“The statistics also showed that about 1,307 doctors trained in Nigeria were licenced in UK as Nigeria continues to battle one of the worst situations of brain-drain in the history. In overall, 10,296 doctors who obtained their degrees in Nigeria are currently practicing in UK.

“Every secondary health centres and specialists hospitals in Ekiti State must have at least nine doctors, but the highest we have is two per hospital. We are supposed to have 276 doctors, but we have just 85. How do you expect us not to have high mortality?

“We need about 195 doctors to run the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, but we only have 95. Why should people blame doctors for the monster the government has created? For the primary, we need 32 but only have 12 and four of them will be retiring soon

“Four local government areas in Ekiti State have no doctors to oversee their primary healthcare centres, which also contributed to high diseases index in the state.”

The NMA urged the state government to implement hazard allowance to medical doctors on its payroll, regretting that Nigerian medical practitioners remain one of the poorly paid globally, and that the trend must change.

However, the Chief Executive Officer,  Gender Relevance Initiative Promotion (GRIP), Rita Ilevbare, has  appealed to the people to shun the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), saying the fact that Ekiti State was rated as having high incidences of teenage pregnancy in the Southwest substantiated that the preservation of female clitoris has no correlation  with promiscuity.