The Head, Human Resources for Health, Federal Ministry of Health, Shakuri Kadiri, has said that Nigeria has one doctor to 2,753 patients. He said this in Abuja on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020 at the launch of the Nigeria Health Work Force Country Profile 2018 and handover of the Nigeria Health Workforce Registry by the health ministry in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners.

He read the profile, which placed the total number of medical doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria at seventy four thousand, five hundred and forty three (74,543). The implication of this figure is that there are 36.3 medical doctors per one hundred thousand (100,000) people in the country. The last health workforce profile of Nigeria was conducted in 2012.

WHO Nigeria Officer in Charge, Clement Peter, said that the registry and profile would ensure that health workforce data was readily available for evidence-based planning and management.

He said the the World Health Organisation (WHO), with funding from the Canadian Government, created the National Health Workforce Registry’s prototype.

He said the current registry had health workforce details for ten (10) states of the federation. Peter stressed there was urgent need for the Federal Government and partners to support efforts to scale up the registry to cover the remaining states, as well as the federal departments, agencies, parastatals and the private sector.

The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, said the government had been striving to get possession of accurate information on the existing health workforce in Nigeria, to facilitate human resource for health planning and by that means, deliver high quality, effective and efficient health services to the people of the country.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.