Following the condition of the health sector in Nigeria, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health and the lawmaker representing Kwara Central Senatorial District, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, has given reasons why the proposed legislation on the five-year medical service cannot work in Nigeria.
His comment came on the heels of a bill known as the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill, 2022, by the Green Chamber on Thursday which seeks to make it compulsory for graduates in medical and dental fields to render services within Nigeria for five years before being granted a full license.
However, the sponsor of the motion, Ganiyu Johnson, a member of the All Progressives Congress from Lagos, said the move was to check the mass exodus of medical professionals from the country and solve the problem of brain drain among doctors.
Senator Oloriegbe, however, in a series of tweets on Saturday noted that the challenges of the health sector were multifaceted and the piece of legislation was not enough to solve the problems.
He said, “I am of the view that the legislative proposal sponsored by Hon. Ganiyu is not enough as a strategy to address the challenge of brain drain in the health sector
“This is because the factors responsible for brain drain are multifaceted and the mere denial of full practice license to medical practitioners as contained in the proposal will never resolve and may even aggravate them.
He advised, “We should advocate for an improved system that will be very attractive and make medical practitioners unwilling to travel abroad to seek better living conditions. That is, we have to make our pastures to be greener so that other people’s pastures won’t be tempting to them.
“We can achieve this through the following recommendations:
Medical students could be obliged to choose between paying the standard market rate for their training or opting for government-subsidised training. Quality education in its real sense can’t be free.
“Those who, however, opted for subsidised training after their qualification would in return be compelled to work in Nigeria for a certain time or refund the subsidies. This is a practice obtainable even in advanced countries such as the United Kingdom.
“To achieve the goal of a mandatory work scheme, we can enable a system that will guarantee employment opportunities for medical professionals after their qualification and provide inflation-adjusted living earnings for a few years after graduation on the condition that they stay in Nigeria to practise.”
Senator Oloriegbe noted that apart from providing attractive remunerations, their work environment and career expectations should also be prioritised.
He stated, “Incorporating both measures should give us satisfactory results.
“Lastly and importantly, we need to improve our health system with sustainable investments to make it conducive for the various health workers to work.
“We can be assured of better outputs only if what we input is in good condition.”
(Upshotreport)