Between April and June, 2020, Adeniyi et al. surveyed a group of 112 doctors (specialists, medical officers, and resident doctors) working at a tertiary hospital in a Nigerian city during a pandemic sensitization and preparedness meeting. [1] According to the authors, only 35% of the surveyed doctors were willing to work in the COVID-19 treatment centers as they perceived themselves not having adequate training, equipment, and compensation. Maslow's theory of human needs embedded with professional growth, skill acquisition, and motivations argue that as human needs are satisfied, they remain intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, explore their latent and inner core, develop their professional capacities, capabilities, and practices, and ultimately attain the state of self-actualization. [2] According to Abraham Maslow, there are five levels of humans needs and human action is grounded in the satisfaction of these unmet needs. At the base of the hierarchy are basic physiological needs, followed in order by safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs. The physiological needs include food, shelter, clothing, and water, which to large extent motivate individuals to find a job and use available earnings to provide for self, families, and friends. Having met those basic needs, individuals progress to the second level in Maslow's hierarchy which is safety needs. To stay on the job, health workforce needs security, safety, and protection from work hazards and stress. [2]
PANDEMIC REALITIES, MIGRATION, AND PHYSICIAN WELFARE SYSTEM IN NIGERIAFrontline medical workers in Nigeria unfortunately struggle to overcome fundamental needs at Maslow level one hierarchy ladder. Poor remuneration and deplorable working conditions have led to massive exodus of doctors. It has been reported that of the 75,000 registered doctors in Nigeria, over 33,000 have migrated to higher income countries to seek better living and working conditions, leaving an underserved health systems with a doctor patient ratio of 1:10,000 as against the recommended 1:600 by the World Health Organization. [3,4] Nigeria has witnessed more than three periods of national doctors' strike over the past 1 year. Major asks from the government include improved working conditions, adequate budgetary allocation for health, and improved pandemic packages for effective response. The findings of Adeniyi et al., therefore, may not be shocking in the current system.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.