…Says its now one to 10,000 patients
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, has alerted of the plan by 4,000 of its members to disengage their services in the country and migrate abroad for greener pastures, noting that it was now a ratio of one doctor to 10,000 patients in the country.
This came as the association expressed worries over the government’s treatment of members. It said with the government’s nonchalant attitudes to members salaries, welfare and other deserved packages, the country may be heading to a point where it would have no doctors anymore.
The association revealed that Nigeria had already lost 2,000 doctors to the outside world in the last two years, and tasked the Government to halt the drift by doing the needful, to avoid what it called disaster in the nations health sector.
According to its national president, Dr, Emeka Orji, who spoke to newsmen yesterday, one doctor was at the moment attending to 10,000 patients. This, he noted, was far above the World Health Organisation, (WHO)s recommended ratio of one doctor to 600 patients.
Although the NARD president admitted that mobility of labour was recognised anywhere in the world, he, however, said there were several reasons why people can decide to leave their countries or migrate to other places, asking the government to find out the reasons and address them.
Dr. Orji, who said the leadership of his organisation has been discussing with the government on the need to do the right things, regretted that the latter was not expediting actions in addressing the identified grey areas.
Orji said NARD was taking pro-active steps to ensure members were given deserved attention by the government, saying it had met with many stakeholders for intervention.
