The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has raised alarm over the scarcity of doctors in Jigawa State, saying that the state has the highest record of brain drain in the country. The NMA Chairman in the state, Dr. Aminu Abdullahi, said that the current doctor-patient ratio in Jigawa is about one doctor to 21,000 patients, far below the World Health Organization’s (WHO) standard of one doctor to 600 patients.
Dr. Abdullahi made this known in a statement on Saturday to mark 2023 Physicians Week, with the theme “This is our chance to get it right in the health sector”. He said that brain drain has negatively affected the state, which allocated 16 percent of its 2023 annual budget to the health sector. He explained that only about 350 doctors are working in both state and federal health facilities, catering to seven million people in the state.
He added that the ratio of nurses and other health workers to patients is also similar to that of doctors, which will significantly affect the health indices of the state. He noted that Jigawa was among the early states to implement CONMESS and CONHESS salary structures for the healthcare workforce back in 2011, which made it one of the highest-paid states in the country back then.
He said that the current challenges facing the health sector as a whole call for sincere, deliberate, and fact-guided discussions concerning the healthcare delivery system. He said that there is no better time to make the healthcare delivery system in Jigawa more efficient and responsive than now, given the current economic realities the nation is going through.
He also said that the sub-themes of Physicians Week—”The Abuja Declaration 22 years later” and “Ethical Issues in Human Organ Donation”—are in tune with the current realities in the health sector. He urged all stakeholders to work together to improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare services in Jigawa and Nigeria at large.