Ali Pate, the coordinating minister of health and social welfare, says over 16,000 Nigerian doctors have left the country in the last five to seven years to seek greener pastures abroad.
Pate spoke in Abuja on Tuesday at the Association of Medical Councils of Africa’s seventh annual capacity development workshop, which had as its topic “Integrated healthcare regulation and leadership in building resilient health systems”.
According to Pate, the country’s doctor-to-population ratio is now 3.9 per 10,000, noting that the average cost of educating a doctor is more than $21,000.
The minister lamented that the development has put the nation’s health care sector in a precarious situation.
He said Nigeria’s skilled medical professionals choose to go abroad due to incentives like “better pay, better working circumstances, more advanced training, and better research environments”.
“In Nigeria alone, over 16,000 doctors are estimated to have left the country in the last five to seven years, with thousands more leaving in just the past few years. Nurses and midwives have also thinned in numbers,” he said.
“The doctor-to-population ratio now stands at around 3.9 per 10,000—well below the suggested global minimum.
“But this trend is not just about people leaving. It represents a fiscal loss. The estimated cost of training one doctor exceeds $21,000—a figure that reflects the magnitude of public financing walking out of our countries. It deeply affects our health systems—leaving many of our rural communities critically underserved.”
The minister emphasised that the phenomenon offers an opportunity to rethink and reshape the policies, and to manage the valuable health workforce in ways that benefit our countries first and foremost.
“In Nigeria, guided by the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who African Heads of State appointed as the AU’s Continental Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery, we are pursuing a new direction,” he said.
“His vision is for Nigeria to become a prosperous, people-oriented country that contributes to a peaceful and thriving continent.
“Not a standalone Nigeria, but a Nigeria that is interlinked with all our neighbours and sister countries. Under the Renewed Hope Agenda, and within the framework of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, we have embraced a new path—combining strategic realism with visionary ambition.
“The National Policy on Health Workforce Migration is a cornerstone of this path. It is designed to address health workforce migration with dignity—dignity for health workers, for the country, and the profession. It is data-driven, evidence-guided, and signals a clear direction.
“This is not a restrictive policy, nor is it one born out of resignation. We understand that the global health workforce shortage is at 18 million, and countries in the Global North face their human resource crises due to demographics and other factors.
“our response is based on stewardship—balancing the rights of health professionals to seek opportunities abroad with our duty to protect the integrity and viability of our national health system.
“The objectives are clear – To retain and motivate health workers currently serving in Nigeria—thousands of whom work under difficult conditions; to establish ethical norms and explore bilateral frameworks for recruitment, aiming to correct global asymmetries; to expand training capacity—not only for domestic needs, but to contribute to global workforce needs, to enable structured reintegration for the thousands of Nigerian professionals abroad; and to strengthen governance, improve regulatory coordination, and build real-time data systems.”
