Prevalence and pattern of migration intention of doctors undergoing training programmes in public tertiary hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background Emigration of Nigerian doctors, including those undergoing training, to the developed countries in Europe and Americas has reached an alarming rate. Objective This study aimed at assessing the prevalence, pattern, and determinants of migration intention among doctors undergoing residency and internship training programmes in the public tertiary hospitals in Ekiti state, Nigeria. Methods This was a cross-sectional study using a quantitative data collected from 182 doctors undergoing residency and internship training at the two tertiary hospitals. An adapted semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect information on migration intention among the eligible respondents. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate data analyses were done. The level of significance was determined at p-value < 0.05. Results Majority (53.9%) of doctors undergoing training were between 30–39 years, and the mean age was 33.2 ± 5.7 years, male respondents were 68.1%, and 53.8% of the respondents were married. The proportion of doctors undergoing training who had the intention to migrate abroad to practice was 74.2%. A higher proportion of the internship trainees, 79.5%, intended to migrate abroad to practice while the proportion among the resident doctors, was 70.6%. Among the respondents who intended to migrate abroad to practice, 85(63%) intend to migrate abroad within the next 2 years, while the preferred countries of destination were the United Kingdom 65(48.2%), Canada 29 (21.5%), Australia 20 (14.8%) and the United States 18(13.3%). Seventy percent of respondents who intend to migrate abroad had started working on implementation of their intention to migrate abroad. The majority of the junior resident doctors, 56(72.7%), intend to migrate abroad compared with the senior resident doctors, 21(27.3%), (χ2 = 14.039; p < 0.001). The determinants of migration intention are the stage of residency training and level of job satisfaction. Conclusion There is a high prevalence of migration intention among the doctors undergoing training in the public tertiary hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria, with the majority already working on their plans to migrate abroad. Doctors undergoing training who are satisfied with their job and those who are in the senior stage of residency training programme are less inclined to migrate abroad. Recommendations The hospital management in the tertiary hospitals should develop retention strategies for human resources for health, especially doctors undergoing training in their establishment, to avert the possible problems of dearth of specialists in the tertiary health facilities. Also, necessary support should be provided for the residency training programme in the tertiary health institutions to make transition from junior to senior residency stage less strenuous.

Residency training or migration: a multi-centric study exploring the inclination to migrate among medical residents in Iran

“…It is generally believed that the early detection of migration intention in employees would be bene cial to resolve the exodus problem before it exacerbates (22). There are few studies on the topic of migration among medical residents in LMICs.…”

Modal Auxiliaries in Selected Newspaper Editorials on Medical Brain Drain in Nigeria

“…Data was gathered from editions of the selected newspapers published between 2018 and 2022; a period when the country recorded a notable increase in the rate of emigration of health workers to seek greener pastures in foreign countries (See Adebayo and Akinyemi 2022; The Guardian Editorial Board 2022). The emigration which is on progressive increase has, according to Akinwumi et al (2022), reached an alarming rate. While there are over 10 news reports on doctors' emigration in each newspaper, the nature of editorials is responsible for the limited number.…”

“…(The Guardian, 26 September 2019) [2] Therefore, the government should wake up to this reality and work hard to change the depressing narrative. (The Sun, 10 May 2019) [3] Aside from the fact that he is Minister of Labour and as such should have statistics in the country… he is also a medical doctor and has a good idea of the state of the nation's hospital (Daily Trust, 29 April 2019)…”

“…The newspaper calls on the government to make strong efforts to change the negative situation which medical brain drain has caused. The focus in [3] is on the attitude of the Minister of Labour and Employment to the problem of doctors' exodus. He had claimed that the country has more than enough doctors.…”

“…He had claimed that the country has more than enough doctors. In [3], the NMA president refutes the claim and admonishes the Minister, who is responsible for labour administration, labour protection and productivity improvement in the country, on his claims and disposition to the issue of doctors' exodus, being a medical doctor himself. He condemns his seeming ignorance of the statistics of medical doctors in government hospitals and the state of the nation's hospitals.…”