Posted on: Wed 22-01-2025

The Chief Medical Directors, CMDs, of teaching hospitals said, yesterday, tertiary health institutions in the country were facing threats of becoming empty, as doctors, nurses and other skilled workers leave in their numbers due to poor remuneration, despite the Federal Government’s investment in health infrastructure.

The Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Professor Wasiu Adeyemo, and his counterpart in University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Professor Jesse Abiodun and others raised the alarm at the 2025 budget defence before the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions.

Speaking at the session, Adeyemo informed the committee that the rate at which medical workers were leaving the country was alarming, stressing 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 healthcare workers.

“Otherwise, government is putting a lot of money in infrastructure, and we are going to have empty hospitals. The major reason people leave is economic. Consultants are earning less than $1,000.”

Giving details of his hospital’s 2024 budget performance, Adeyemo disclosed that it had a total budget of N19.2 billion, out of which personnel took N13.57 billion and the remaining, capital overhead.

Similarly, the Chief Medical Director, University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Prof. Jesse Abiodun, lamented the delay in the release of budgeted funds to the hospital which, according to him, has adversely affected its operations.

Giving the details of UCH’s 2024 budget, he said it had a capital appropriation of N5,593,110,394, disclosing, however, that only 38 per cent of the funds was released, leaving a balance of 62 per cent.

He said:  “We have the 62 percent left. Yes, we actually were among the last people to be batched for payment, and the payment started coming in actually in this December. We were able to even utilize this 38 per cent because we had already done the cash plan before the release.”

In his remark, chairman of the committee, Patrick Umoh, charged the CMDs of university teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres, FMCs, to be thorough in their presentations in order to provide a clear picture of their situations.

SOURCE: VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

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