The Nigerian government recently approved a comprehensive ‘National Health Workforce Migration Policy’ to address the growing concerns over the migration of health professionals. The strategic policy, designed to curb health worker migration, carries significant weight. Its potential to mitigate the issue and substantially transform Nigeria’s healthcare system cannot be overstated.
The document resulted from a robust and inclusive collaborative effort spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in partnership with the World Health Organization and funded by the United Kingdom government’s Department of Health and Social Care. This underscores the shared responsibility in addressing health worker migration and the inclusivity of all stakeholders in the process.
Health worker migration has been a persistent and significant challenge for Nigeria’s healthcare sector. The increasing number of skilled professionals seeking opportunities abroad has led to Nigeria being one of the 55 countries with a severe shortage of health workers on the WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguard List 2023.
This trend compromises the delivery of quality healthcare services and threatens the nation’s ability to achieve health-related SDGs.
The policy’s development involved many stakeholders in Nigeria’s health sector and the diaspora. It aligns with the new National health sector renewal initiative using a sector-wide approach (SWAP) with a focus on several key areas, including improving healthcare worker retention rates, promoting ethical recruitment practices, enhancing data collection for better workforce planning, and investing in healthcare worker education and capacity building.
By addressing these critical issues, the policy seeks to ensure Nigeria can meet its health workforce needs while contributing to the global health landscape.
The health ministry has implemented critical policy interventions to address the effects of Nigeria’s health worker shortage. These include increasing the training quota of health training institutions to boost the production of health workers and providing in-service training for 120,000 health workers to enhance the quality of care at PHCs.
This will expand the capacity of available health workers to deal with the current health needs of the people and improve the motivation of these health workers; policies like the National Human Resource for Health Policy, task shifting and sharing policy and other guidelines to ensure optimal use of available Human resources for health.
WHO supports the government’s efforts in strengthening evidence generation through the national health workforce registry, national health workforce account and health workforce profile for improved decision-making.
In a prior interview, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammed Pate, noted, “This policy represents our dedication to building a resilient health system that can meet the needs of our people. This policy is more than just a response to the ongoing exodus of healthcare professionals; it’s a comprehensive strategy to manage, harness, and reverse healthworker migration. It envisions a thriving workforce that is well-supported, adequately rewarded, and optimally utilised to meet the healthcare needs of all Nigerians”
The Minister called on “recipient countries to implement a one-for-one (1:1) match—training one worker to replace every publicly trained Nigerian worker they receive.”
Speaking on the importance of the new policy, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, WHO representative in Nigeria, applauded the government for embarking on the laudable policy intervention to manage the uncoordinated migration of health workers.
“The approval of this policy is a significant step towards achieving the health-related SDGs in Nigeria. By addressing the root causes of health worker migration and promoting sustainable workforce planning, Nigeria aims to deliver better health outcomes for its population,” said Mulombo. “WHO is proud to have supported this initiative, which will benefit Nigeria and contribute to global health equity.”
