Emem Isong emitted anguished cries whereas mendacity on a gurney exterior a distinguished hospital’s accident and emergency division in Nigeria’s largest metropolis.
The excruciating ordeal ensued after a automotive tragically crushed her foot, ensuing within the fracturing of two toes.
“Please hold on … there are just three of us on duty,” a nurse on the Ebute-Metta federal medical heart in Lagos instructed the 33-year-old. “The alternative is for you to go to another hospital.”
After a five-hour wait, nurses tended to Isong’s wounds.
“It was either I wait till it is my turn or they refer me to another hospital that will turn me away,” stated Isong.
Nigeria, like many different African international locations, is struggling a flight of expertise from its fragile healthcare sector as richer international locations woo underpaid however expert professionals – a state of affairs its authorities hopes to treatment with new laws.
Michael Nnachi, president of Nigeria’s nursing union, stated over 11,000 of 150,000 members had left the workforce for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic to hunt higher pay and situations overseas.
The financial downturn in Nigeria has solely boosted the development, stated the nursing union’s chairperson, Olurotimi Awojide.
“Food, transport, and rent are high, and the money they pay now can’t meet our needs. Nurses feel they need to go out of the country to live a better life,” he stated.
Nigeria has been on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) checklist of nations with a scarcity of healthcare staff since 2020. Foreign employers are discouraged from recruiting nurses from the checklist, two-thirds of which this yr are African states.
But the checklist has confirmed ineffective in stemming the exodus and Nigerian hospital managers say affected person care is struggling as there are usually not sufficient new nurses to switch these shifting overseas.
Wasiu Adeyemo has managed Lagos University Teaching Hospital for greater than a decade however stated he has by no means seen workers shortages as unhealthy as now.
Four wards with over 90 beds stay shut on the facility, one in all Nigeria’s greatest specialist hospitals, with no nurses to function them.
“Everyone talks about doctors leaving when the real problem we’re facing is nurses going daily,” Adeyemo instructed the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“At this point, are we saying we’re going to hire nurses from Sudan or Cuba?” he requested. “Few nurses apply for jobs, and when we employ them … about 50% will resign after three months to go to the U.K.”
Thousands UK-bound
Britain is the favored vacation spot for Nigerian nurses.
Last yr, 7,200 Nigerian nurses had been registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Britain’s skilled physique. Only the Philippines and India had extra nurses than Britain.
The British authorities says employers mustn’t actively recruit from locations like Nigeria on what it calls the “red list” of nations the place the WHO says there’s a scarcity of healthcare staff. But candidates from these international locations can nonetheless apply for jobs marketed in Britain.
Nigerians acquired 12% of the expert well being and care employee visas issued final yr, Britain’s Home Office stated.
Nigerian nurse Josephine is about so as to add to the quantity. The 28-year-old stated she resigned from one in all Nigeria’s main most cancers care hospitals after receiving a U.Ok. visa final month.
Her husband bought their automotive and she or he is promoting furnishings and home equipment earlier than taking over her new job as a crucial care nurse within the non-public sector in Britain.
The mother-of-two, who requested for her surname not for use, stated it was more and more laborious to stay on her 100,000 nairas ($135) month-to-month wage.
“I’m on duty at the hospital all weekend, away from my children, all to be paid peanuts at the end of the month,” Josephine stated. Her British employers pays 20 instances what she now earns, she stated.
Skilled well being employee visas
Although Zimbabwe is far smaller than Nigeria, it was the primary African nation receiving expert well being staff’ visas from the UK – accounting for 16% final yr.
Before she got here to Britain, Tendai earned about $200 a month as a senior nurse in Zimbabwe. The mother-of-three moved two years in the past for a greater profession and a greater future for her youngsters.
Her take-home pay at a hospital within the south of England is over 10 instances her wage again house. Though the excessive price of dwelling means half her wage goes on lease and payments, she doesn’t must pay for her daughters’ education.
“Life in the UK is expensive, but at the end of the day, you are able to afford the basics. I know my kids have the basic things in terms of food, clothes … compared to back home,” stated Tendai, who requested for her actual identify not for use.
Over 4,000 medical doctors and nurses have left Zimbabwe since 2021, in accordance with its Health Services Board.
Anti-exodus legal guidelines
Zimbabwe was added to the WHO checklist of nations the place well being staff shouldn’t be recruited for the primary time in March. Tendai stated many nurses who had paid to take English-language assessments and course of journey paperwork had been sad because it made getting jobs overseas tougher with out recruiters’ assist.
“Some nurses have lost a lot of money – because they had done all these things,” she stated. “People spend two years working towards coming to the U.K. and then when you think you are almost there, the red list comes.”
Zimbabwean Health Minister who can be the vp, Constantino Chiwenga stated plans had been underway to criminalize the international recruitment of well being professionals and retain the workforce, native media reported.
Back in Nigeria, lawmakers have handed a invoice to withhold licenses from medical doctors and dentists till they’ve practiced within the nation for 5 years. The president has but to signal the invoice into regulation, however one parliamentarian already needs to place the identical restrictions on nurses and pharmacists.
Doctors have threatened strike motion in response.
“It is a lazy approach,” stated Jesse Otegbayo, professor of drugs on the University College Hospital within the southwestern metropolis of Ibadan. Instead, the federal government ought to tackle well being staff’ considerations, he stated.
James Avoka Asamani, a WHO professional in Africa, stated richer nations ought to compensate international locations that had educated well being staff to make the method mutually helpful.
“If another country has used their public resources to train health workers, and you are recruiting them, it is only morally justified that you also invest in that health system to protect it from collapse,” Asamani stated.
But for now, Otegbayo stated hospitals in Nigeria had been on the brink, with many nurses complaining of burnout.
“This is a serious situation … any health administrator and the public should be worried. The few nurses that are left are overworked, and this will affect the patients,” he stated.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
