By Gloria Ikibah
Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of teaching hospitals in Nigeria have expressed concerns over the increasing loss of doctors, nurses, and other skilled health workers, despite government investments in health infrastructure.
They ascribed the alarming trend, to poor remuneration and inadequate pay packages, adding that it threatens to leave the nation’s tertiary hospitals understaffed.
The CMD Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Professor Wasiu Adeyemo, and his counterpart from the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Professor Jesse Abiodun, raised these concerns during the 2025 budget defence session before the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions.
Professor Adeyemo highlighted the urgency of the matter, stating, “The rate at which medical workers are leaving the country is alarming. We need to act fast to address this situation.”
This warning underscores the broader implications of brain drain in the health sector, with CMDs urging immediate action to improve working conditions and retain skilled personnel in the country.
He said, “People resign, retire not even retirement, resignation almost every day. Yes. In the next one or two years, we are going to have all our hospitals empty. We need to do something about remuneration of all the health care workers.
“Otherwise, government is putting a lot of money in infrastructure, and we are going to have empty hospitals. The major reason why people leave is for economic reasons. Consultants are earning less than $1,000”.
Giving details of the Hospital’s 2024 budget performance, the CMD informed that, they had a total budget of N19.2 billion out of which personnel has N13.57 billio and a total overhead of N33.2 million.
He added, “In terms of performance and utilization total Overhead was hundred percent as of December for the total Personnel, 91 percent performance but for the capital project 45 percent. So outstanding is 55 percent. November and December are released today we would cover maybe about 85 percent”.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Wasiu Adeyemo, while responding to observations by members of the Committee regarding personnel performance, explained that the hospital recorded a 95 percent performance rate.
He attributed this to the payment of benefits and other activities arising from the high number of resignations and retirements within the year.
He stated, “The 95 percent personnel performance we achieved is largely due to payments made for benefits and other related activities triggered by the resignations and retirements we experienced this year.”
“For the proposal for 2025, a total budget of 32.7 billion, out of which a total overhead which is better than that of last year. Personnel is 20.3. I think it’s 13 last year”.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Prof. Jesse Abiodun, expressed concern over the delayed release of budgeted funds to the hospital, stating that this has significantly hampered its operations.
Providing details of UCH’s 2024 budget, Prof. Abiodun disclosed that the hospital was allocated a capital appropriation of ₦5,593,110,394. However, he revealed that only 38 percent of the funds had been released, leaving a balance of 62 percent yet to be disbursed.
He said, “We have the 72% left. Yes, we actually were among the last people to be batched for payment, and the payment started coming in actually in this December. We were able to even utilize this 38 percent because we had already done the cash plan before the release.
“For 2025, that is on page one. So for the capital, we are proposing N4, 387, 763,661 for capital. This is a bit less than what we had in 2024. And that’s because of this envelope system, what we’re given, we have to work with it.
“The overhead, we have N690,006,464 only. There’s a bit of increase over that of 2024 because of the outrageous bills we are getting from Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company”.
Earlier in his remarks, the Committee Chairman, Rep. Patrick Umoh charged the CMDs of University Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centers (FMCs) to be thorough in their presentations in order to provide a clear picture of their situations.
He said, “The reality is that you must extract the proposal made by Mr. President as it affects your medical center. It should be part of your budget, your presentation. The report of the 2024 budget performance and 2025 budget proposal is given provisional approval for now”.
Rep. Umoh lamented the precarious situation facing tertiary health institutions in the country.
The Chairman ruled that, while committee can not attend to all the health institutions, it will collect all their correspondences and submissions from the outstanding teaching hospitals to work on for further deliberations.