Chief medical directors (CMDs) of Teaching Hospitals have raised the alarm that doctors, nurses and other skilled health workers were leaving the country in droves as a result of poor renumeration and other welfare packages.
According to them, tertiary health institutions were facing threats of becoming empty because of the syndrome and called for urgent intervention to curb the impending health crisis.
Some of CMDs, including that of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Professor Wasiu Adeyemo and University College Hospital Ibadan, Professor Jesse Abiodun, University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Prof Emem Bassey, amongst others raised the concern at the 2025 budget defence session before the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions.
Professor Adeyemo told the committee that, the rate at which medical workers were leaving the country was alarming, hence the need to act fast to address the situation.
He said, “People resign, retire not even retirement, resignation almost every day. Yes. In the next one or two years, we are going to have all our hospitals empty. We need to do something about remuneration of all the health care workers.
“Otherwise, government is putting a lot of money in infrastructure, and we are going to have empty hospitals. The major reason why people leave is for economic reasons. Consultants are earning less than $1,000.”
Giving details of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital’s 2024 budget performance, the CMD said the hospital had a total budget of N19.2 billion out of which personnel has N13.57 billion and a total overhead of N33.2 million.
“In terms of performance and utilisation total overhead was 100 per cent as of December for the total personnel, 91 per cent performance but for the capital project 45 per cent. So outstanding is 55 per cent. November and December are released today we would cover maybe about 85 per cent,” he added.
The CMD stated that a total budget of N32.7 billion has been proposed for the hospital in 2025 with a total overhead of N20.3 billion which was better than that of 2024.
For his part, Ibadan Teaching Hospital CMD, Professor Abiodun lamented the delayed release of budgetary allocations to the hospital which he said has adversely affected its operations.
The CMD noted that the hospital was allocated N5,593,110,394 capital expenditure in the 2024 budget but only 38 per cent had been released with an outstanding balance of 72 percent.
“For 2025, we are proposing N4,387, 763,661 for capital. This is a bit less than what we had in 2024. And that’s because of this envelope system, what we’re given, we have to work with it. The overhead, we have N690,006,464 only. There’s a bit of increase over that of 2024 because of the outrageous bills we are getting from Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company,” he noted.
The committee’s chairman, Hon. Patrick Umoh, decried the precarious situation facing tertiary health institutions in the country and assured of legislative intervention.
