@nigerianshealth: Nigeria has 35,000 doctors but in reality needs 277,000 more doctors to meet the WHO prescribed doctor-patient ratio of 1:600. It explains the poor access to medical services and the attendant poor health indices. Mothers die needlessly due to pregnancy-related complications, many of our children die before the age of five and our life expect is about 55-57 years. It is time to think outside the box. How do we build the manpower required to meet our health need. Training of more doctors is not an immediate solution. It will take a century to train enough doctors to attain the suggested doctor-patient ratio. The shortage of manpower also applies to nurses, midwives, pharmacists, physiotherapists.
Nigeria requires short term and long term strategic plans to address the short fall of trained health personnel. Meanwhile, Nigerians succumb to avoidable deaths every minute. Nigeria needs to look at the training of Nurse Practitioners, Pharmacists, Community Health Workers, Traditional Birth Attendants, School health staff, Dispensary staff etc to take on expanded roles. Our model of care should be developed from within Nigeria and the time is now. Any ideas?