Posted on: Sat 20-05-2023

The Registrar, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, Dr Tajudeen Sanusi, says it is untrue to say there are no jobs for medical doctors in Nigeria. He said rather, most doctors prefer to work in cities and certain locations, while declining to work in rural areas, which, according to him, have many vacancies.

Speaking in a recent interview with our correspondent, Sanusi said while Nigeria might not be producing enough doctors, there would be improved access to medical care if doctors accept to serve in other areas outside their preferred locations.

Responding to a question on whether he was aware that scarcity of good jobs was becoming a disincentive for many young people who wanted to go into the profession, he stated, “I always tell people that it is not that there is no job, it is a question of choice. Some of them will tell you they can never work in the North. They have their preferred place. Have you ever come across any medical doctor saying they are jobless?”

When reminded that medical associations have repeatedly lamented the non-availability of jobs for their members, he said, “There are, but quite a number of them don’t want to leave their areas. The cities are saturated but there are vacancies in the rural areas. Why can’t they go there? They need people there (the rural areas). If they really want to work, they will go there. There are vacancies in rural settings.”

Meanwhile, when asked if Nigeria was producing enough doctors, he said that was yet to happen. However, he said the effective utilisation of those available was important.

He stated, “Inasmuch as I will agree that we are not graduating enough doctors, the few ones we have, are we making effective utilisation of them? For instance, the training in family medicine does not allow them to work in teaching hospitals. They are supposed to work at the secondary care level. But how many of them can you find at the secondary care level?

“Even despite the inadequacy of the manpower, if they stay where they are supposed to stay, that will alleviate some problems. Go to our general hospitals, you can hardly find any family physician there. We discussed this at the Economic Community of West African States meeting at Cotonou (Benin Republic).

“They are trained to be on the field because they did some advanced training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics, Internal Medicine and Surgery; the latter does not make you a specialist surgeon because somebody who did O&G would have spent three years before applying for part one.”

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