Former Nigeria President, Olusegun Obasanjo has raised fresh concern over the mass migration of Nigerian doctors to other parts of the globe.
Obasanjo made his thoughts known during the inauguration of the Yeriman Bakura Specialist Hospital in Zamfara on Tuesday.
This comes amid revelation that over 15,000 doctors have left Nigeria in the past five years.
The former president provided solutions to checkmate the Japa syndrome.
Among other things, he urged the federal government to incentivise doctors and other healthcare workers to prevent them from migrating abroad.
“For hospitals, especially when many Nigerians who have been trained as medical personnel are ‘japa-ing’, which is going out of the country, looking for better conditions, how do you hold them here? You have to give them a bit of incentive.
“You need the right environment and that is the refurbishing, renovation but you need the right equipment and then you need the personnel,” he stated.
According to the President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Prof Bala Audu, over 15,000 doctors had left the country in the past five years.
Consequently, one doctor attends to 8,000 patients, a situation that is overstretching the health sector.