The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, says the Federal Government has commenced the one-for-one replacement policy to address the effect of the ongoing brain drain in the health sector.
But the Nigerian Medical Association and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors say the FG is yet to commence the implementation of the policy.
Ehanire had in August 2022 said the government would deploy the one-for-one replacement policy to ensure that each healthcare worker that leaves the country would be replaced immediately.
He said “I have heard the complaints the doctors are leaving the system, but actually we have enough doctors in the country because we are producing a good number of doctors every year. Just that the recruitment process needs to be smoothened.
“We are working with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service to have what we call one-for-one replacement. If one doctor resigns today, we employ one doctor. If it is one nurse, we replace with one nurse. So, if we adopt it, we are not likely to have a shortage. So, we are trying to have one-for-one policy to reduce to shortage of doctors in our hospital.”
Association, Dr Uche Ojinmah, told The PUNCH that the policy had yet to be implemented, adding that the delay was worsening the brain drain in the health sector.
“They have not started the one-for-one policy. We had a meeting recently to discuss brain drain in the health sector but they have not started the implementation of the policy. The implication for the delay of the implementation is that the brain drain is deteriorating,” the NMA president said.
Also, the President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, Dr Emeka Orji, said, “We were hoping that rising from that meeting, the policy would be launched but up till now, they have not done that. Meanwhile, the brain drain is getting worse, people are still leaving and they are not replacing them.”
When contacted to get an update on the policy, the health minister, in a terse text message to our correspondent, said, “It has started. I even announced it again during an official inspection visit to the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital.”
