“Our hospitals will be empty in the next one or two years.” That was the alarming warning from Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of University Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres (FMCs) while defending the 2025 budget before the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions last week.

This distressing signal on Nigeria’s healthcare sector is not new; alarms have been sounded for decades on how several factors are degrading healthcare delivery in Nigeria, yet successive administrations have continued to treat the situation with levity.

Just last year, a similar warning was issued by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, when he revealed that Nigeria had only 55,000 licensed doctors and as many as 300,000 health professionals across various cadres to cater to the country’s growing population of over 220 million. He further disclosed that the country had lost about 16,000 doctors to foreign migration in the past five years. According to the minister, the brain drain, popularly referred to as the ‘japa syndrome,’ has significantly impacted the country’s health sector by depriving Nigeria of its most skilled professionals.

Yet, it appears the government is not keen to take drastic measures to arrest this grim reality. In any serious country, the distressing signal raised by the CMDs should trigger immediate action, if not an outright declaration of a state of emergency in the health sector.

For decades, Nigeria’s health sector has been burdened with a myriad of challenges, including long-standing neglect of infrastructure, lack of essential medical equipment, and poor remuneration for healthcare professionals. These issues are further exacerbated by the mass migration of medical personnel seeking better opportunities abroad, particularly in the UK, USA, and Canada.

It is saddening that Nigeria is training competent, hardworking healthcare professionals only for developed countries to pluck them out when they are ripe and their services most needed at home. This mass exodus of medical professionals is significantly weakening the country’s healthcare system, and unless something drastic is done to arrest the situation, the alarm raised by the CMDs will become a reality.

Essentially, having fewer doctors and other medical personnel available means the quality of healthcare delivery will further deteriorate. It means that patients will experience longer wait times, medical staff will endure excessive workloads, and ultimately, the risk of medical errors will increase. This will inevitably lead to more fatalities among both patients and exhausted health workers.

What is even more disappointing is how Nigeria’s political class continues to reward itself while ignoring a sector that is critical to the survival of its citizens. For a country that has recently increased the salaries of judicial officers, and military personnel, what will it take to prioritise the remuneration of those who work tirelessly to save lives? Last year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances Bill into law, granting a 300 per cent salary increase for judicial officers at both federal and state levels.

More recently, the president approved a salary increase for the armed forces, including three months’ arrears. Yet, the Nigerian government appears oblivious to the fact that healthcare practitioners should benefit from similar gestures.

In 2024, Prof. Pate made it clear that while the government cannot restrict freedom of movement, efforts will be made to create a more favourable environment to encourage health workers to stay and practice in Nigeria. “We’re not stopping anyone from leaving. We’re accepting that migration is here to stay. People will leave, some will come back, and some will migrate here from elsewhere,” he said.

We agree with the coordinating minister of Health and Social Welfare that it is unlikely that the ‘japa syndrome’ will stop or that the government can stop it. However, its impact can be mitigated through deliberate efforts to strengthen the sector. This can be achieved by ensuring competitive salaries and improved working conditions for healthcare providers, creating an environment that encourages retention, and making the field attractive to aspiring medical professionals.

It should take nothing for the federal government to come up with an executive bill that will see to the increase of salaries and allowances of health workers who work daily to save lives, particularly for the most vulnerable members of society.

We at Daily Trust call for a state of emergency to be declared in the healthcare sector. The Nigerian government must invest not only in infrastructure but also in the welfare of medical staff by offering competitive salaries, better working conditions, and ensuring the safety and well-being of medical personnel.

We call on the federal government to take immediate action as the consequences of a failing and collapsing health sector are too grave to ignore. It is time to act decisively before the situation gets out of hand.