The COVID-19 pandemic and health workforce brain drain in Nigeria

Abstract

Over the years, the Nigerian healthcare workforce, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have always been known to emigrate to developed countries to practice. However, the recent dramatic increase in this trend is worrisome. There has been a mass emigration of Nigerian healthcare workers to developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the push factors have been found to include the inadequate provision of personal protective equipment, low monthly hazard allowance, and inconsistent payment of COVID-19 inducement allowance on top of worsening insecurity, the pull factors are higher salaries as well as a safe and healthy working environment. We also discuss how healthcare workers can be retained in Nigeria through increment in remunerations and prompt payment of allowances, and how the brain drain can be turned into a brain gain via the use of electronic data collection tools for Nigerian health workers abroad, implementation of the Bhagwati’s tax system, and establishment of a global skill partnership with developed countries. Graphical Abstract

‘Research is the last thing on our minds, we are in crisis’: Experiences of Lagos state nurses towards research and scholarly endeavours

“…This This conforms to the study of Wu et al (2019) Asuquo et al (2013), which indicated that most nurses are not well represented at the institutional level in decisions related to research. Furthermore, the Nigerian health sector is currently witnessing the "brain drain" phenomenon, wherein the country's best professionals are leaving the country for academic or professional purposes (Lawal et al, 2022). This has affected all aspects of healthcare delivery, including research activities (Olorunfemi et al, 2020).…”

‘Government don't know me and if I stop, they won't know’: A qualitative study on the lived experiences of volunteer health workers in the Nigerian health system and their implications for the sustainable development goals

“…This shortage of health workers hampers the ability to provide adequate and timely healthcare services, particularly in busy and hard to reach healthcare facilities. The health worker crisis in Nigeria is further compounded by maldistribution and emigration of health workers 15,18,19 …”

“…The health worker crisis in Nigeria is further compounded by maldistribution and emigration of health workers. 15,18,19 The implications are that many Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in Nigeria depend on volunteers to complement the formal staff. According to the Nigerian Strategic Health Plan, volunteer health workers are people engaged by different health programmes to provide community-based health services, and without explicitly defined incentives.…”

Investigating the emigration intention of health care workers: A cross‐sectional study

“…A past study reported that India, the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Pakistan, Colombia and Egypt were the largest exporters of HCWs to high‐income countries (Nair & Webster, 2013 ). Nigeria has joined the rank of the highest donor of HCWs to the high‐income countries, complicated by the exhaustion and job dissatisfaction following the COVID‐19 pandemic (Lawal et al., 2022 ).…”