Nigeria has lost 2,998 trained nurses to the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom (UK) between 2021 and 2022.
This is according to the latest report on the number of professionals on the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register from April 1 to September 2022.
The UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council is the regulator for nursing and midwifery professions as it maintains a register of all nurses, midwives, and specialist community public health nurses and nursing associates eligible to practice within the country.
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has reacted to this development, saying it is becoming out of control.
The Chief Executive of the council, Howard Catton said, “My sense is that the situation currently is out of control.
“We have intense recruitment taking place mainly driven by six or seven high-income countries but with recruitment from countries which are some of the weakest and most vulnerable which can ill-afford to lose their nurses.”
Ghana also is one of the worst hit by this development, as staff rushed to fill NHS posts they found on social media, making hospitals in the country to raise a warning that their workforce had been slashed.
Statistics from NHS in the UK, suggest that approximately two-thirds of the increase in staff hired since 2019 were trained outside the UK. NHS still has about 112,000 vacancies.
British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Richard Montgomery, disclosed on Tuesday, June 7, 2023, that the health system in Nigeria, like many countries in the global south, has been beset with challenges in having a resilient infrastructure that is able to provide quality health services, promote health and prevent diseases.
He said the UK International Development funding aligns with the Nigerian health workforce strategic plan geared at assisting the country to upskill its workers and improve health outcomes in the long run.
In his own opinion, the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo, stated that the strength of every health system reflects the capacity and adequacy of its health workforce necessary to deliver quality services to address population health needs.
He said Nigeria must have adequate numbers of health workers, for a resilient and effective health system. Health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated to perform and equitably distributed across sub-national levels to enhance equity in access to their services by the population in need.
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