Nigeria’s doctor-patient ratio is 1:3,500 – NUC

The National Universities Commission says Nigeria needs about 300,000 medical doctors to meet the doctor-patient ratio of 1:600 recommended by the World Health Organisation.

The Executive Secretary, NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, said this during the maiden matriculation of the Bayelsa Medical University held on the university campus, Amarata, Yenagoa, on Wednesday.

About 208 pioneer students took the matriculation oath on the occasion.

The BMU, which started on January 31, 2018, received the NUC accreditation five months’ after.

Rasheed said the current “doctor-patient ratio in the country stands at 1: 3,500,” stressing that this was among the several challenges bedeviling the nation’s health sector.

According to him, the nation’s medical schools produce about 3,000 doctors yearly and this is not enough to achieve the WHO standards to deliver on health care services.

The NUC boss, who was represented by the Director, Protocol and Special Duties, Mr Chris Maiyaki, said, “With less than 40,000 registered medical doctors practicing in Nigeria, the doctor-patient ratio in the country is about 1:3,500.

“What this means is that we need about 300,000 doctors to meet the World Health Organisation’s recommended doctor-patient ratio of 1:600.

“It is also common knowledge that the Nigerian health care sector continues to face myriad challenges, chief among which is the brain-drain syndrome occasioned by an absence of the enabling environment for medical practitioners to thrive.”

Rasheed further noted that medical tourism embarked upon by patients seeking “robust health care systems of other countries” had also significantly affected Nigeria’s health care system.

He said there was an urgent need for huge investment in health education and health care services by all stakeholders to mitigate the acute shortage of manpower and services in the sector.

In his address, the pioneer Vice-Chancellor of BMU, Prof. Ebitimitula Etebu, said the institution was equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to aid teaching, learning, and research.

Also speaking, the Pro-Chancellor, BMU and a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs, described the medical university as “a dream come true in our section of the country.”

He commended Governor Seriake Dickson for conceiving the idea of a specialized medical school and charged the students to focus on their studies as the institution had given them hope of an assured future.

Dickson, in his remarks, said the establishment of the BMU was “a strategic decision to maximize the state’s investment in education and development.”

The outgoing governor called on the incoming government to support the university to achieve the objectives for which it was established.