|
Unemployment Among Medical Doctros By Dr. Shehi Ali Abubakar
It used to be unthinkable to see a Medical Doctor unemployed or has failed to get a job within a few days after graduation. Infact what delays a Doctors employment is the mandatory swearing in ceremony by the Medical and Dental Council before he takes on any employment. It is common for your friends from other faculties to envy you; by saying you are lucky6 as you are assured employment as soon as you graduate.
Housemanship or Internship is the first point of call for a Medical graduate as a pre-registration employment for 1 year before full registration is given to practice as a medical practitioner. This 1 year employment is mandatory and a Medical Doctor is supposed to do it within 2 years of graduation or his license will be revoked until he writes another exam which is set by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
The situation on ground presently is far from the picture painted above. Medical Doctors in Nigerian are presently in an unemployment crisis that many are wondering whether the many years spent (ASUU strike inclusive) were actually worth it after all.
I am not an angel of doom, and neither am I a pessimist but I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the future is to say the least gloomy for the Medical Profession in Nigeria. This is a profession to which I belong so I stand to gain nothing painting it this way, but the truth must be told. Now, that was a digression. A freshly graduated Doctor now takes an average of eight sixteen months to secure a place for Internship and by the time he or she completes the programmes,. His provisional license would have expired and he would have concluded his Internship without a license.
These group of Doctors are the lucky ones because at lease they have secured a place for the internship within the 2 years of their provisional license. The other group and I personally know many can not get a place within the 2 year period and by this time, they are legally speaking unqualified Doctors.
This situation has now extended to medical officers who are the next step after House officers who may or may not have done their 1 year mandatory youth service scheme depending on age. A Medical Officer is either pursuing his residency in an accredited hospital or is working as a general practitioner in a general or private hospital.
There are many Medical Doctors now who have passed their primaries exam which qualifies them to start their residency programme in a recognized hospital but have failed to gain employment into these hospitals.
Over 20 of my classmates along have this qualification but are either sitting at home or at best offering locum services at private hospitals far less than the national minimum wage.
Many Doctors who can afford it have now resorted to writing foreign exams which would enable them to practice either in the UK or USA. These exams come at great cost but they are more reliable than the Nigerian equivalent in terms of relevance to the field and also as a means of getting employment because despite our numerous problems, Nigerian Doctors are highly regarded in foreign countries. It is estimated that there are over 20,000 Nigerian Doctors in the USA alone and this est6imate is conservative because there are many that bypass immigration laws of these countries.
Dear reader you may ask what is the genesis of this crisis in this noble profession you respect so much. My simple answer is the systematic neglect of the health sector by successive government of this potentially great country. No health policy or plan has been adhered to for more than 10 years by any government and some of these policies are well articulated if only they are implemented. Poor budgeting allocations over the past 20 years to the health sector at between 2 3% have hot helped matter.
Teaching hospitals were established to serve as tertiary level of medical care for the training of Medical Doctors at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Presently many teaching hospitals need resident Doctors in various departments to fill up the spaces created by former resident Doctors who have completed their residency programme and are now consultants, but are enable to employ these residents because of lack of funds in the last 2 year.
Some teaching hospitals that have done interviews for resident Doctors over 8months ago, some of which have given letters of appointment to the Doctors cannot afford to allow them to commence work because they cannot pay them. This is as bad as that.
Some years back, the government in an attempt to increase the number of hospitals that offer residency programmes in the country upgraded some general hospitals to the status of federal medical centres, but this noble idea has been bastardized by the same lack of funds for the employment of staff, for which purpose the hospitals were upgraded in the first place. Thee hospitals now have beautiful infrastructure without manpower to run them. Dear reader, with all these myriad of problems outlined, you must ask what are the solutions to them. A well articulated health policy backed by adequate budgetary allocated and a determined political will to implement them is my humble suggestion. A target should be set for each teaching hospital, Federal Medical Centres and other accredited hospitals for the number of residents and house officers they can employ and this should be backed by enough funds to achieve the target. There are many state owned general hospitals that can be accredited to offer residency programme in liaison with Federal Ministry of Health or other teaching hospitals as this will help in decongesting the teaching hospitals to which most residents run to for their residency programme.
I believe a hospital does nothave to be affiliated to a University for it to be able to run a postgraduate programmes as long as it satisfies the criteria for the programme as stipulated by the National Postgraduate Medical College or the West African Postgraduate Medical College. This will go along way in expanding the opportunities for Medical Doctors to pursue specialist courses, improve the quality of health care they offer to their patients and also contain the present brain drain tide now facing the health sector.
It is very unfortunate for the government of this country to spend tax payers money in training Medical Doctors over many years only for these Doctors to be lured away by foreign countries just for the simple reason that there is no space for them in these hospitals or not incentives for them to stay and work.
Some of the best trained Doctors you have encounter in Europe or Asia are Nigerians trained in Nigeria and exported to serve thee countries to the detriment of their own nation. The implementation of some of these and many other policies will go a long way in bringing back those days during which it was unthinkable to have an unemployed Medical Doctor. DR. SHEHI ALI ABUBAKAR NO. 1B LAPAI ROAD, KADUNA
|