This translates to 33.45 per cent and 29.25 per cent gap in the two categories of medical professionals nationwide. According to them, the most populated nation would approximately need 149,852 doctors and 471,353 nurses by 2030, but regretted that only 99,120 doctors and 333,494 nurses were available. xAccording to Chidebe, the density of physicians to a patient is four doctors per 10,000 patients and 16.1 nurses and midwives per 10,000 patients, which he said, was less than the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations of one doctor to 600 patients and the critical threshold of 23 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10,000 patients. “In our calculation, it means that there is only one cancer doctor to over 1,100 patients in Nigeria. This migration of Nigerian healthcare worker abroad impacts on Nigeria in diverse ways, for instance, the mortality cost of Nigerian physician migration to abroad totals to $3.1 billion yearly.

Source: The Guardian July 08, 2021 04:30 UTC