Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of Federal Teaching Hospitals Tuesday lamented the continuous exit of health workers from the country.
They said the hospitals are becoming empty, as health workers seek greener pastures outside the country because of poor remunerations.
Chief Medical Director (CMD), Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Professor Wasiu Adeyemo and the Chief Medical Director (CMD), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Professor Jesse Abiodun and others raised the alarm at the 2025 budget defence session before the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions.
Speaking, the CMD, LUTH, Professor Adeyemo said, “People resign, retire not even retirement, resignation almost every day. Yes. In the next one or two years, we are going to have all our hospitals empty. We need to do something about the remuneration of all the health care workers.
“Otherwise, the government is putting a lot of money into infrastructure, and we are going to have empty hospitals. The major reason why people leave is for economic reasons. Consultants are earning less than $1,000”.
On the hospital’s 2024 budget performance, he stated that they had a total budget of N19.2 billion out of which personnel has N13.57 billion and a total overhead of N33.2 million.
“In terms of performance and utilization, total overhead was hundred percent as of December for the total personnel, 91 percent performance but for the capital project, 45 percent. So, outstanding is 55 percent. November and December are released today. We would cover maybe about 85 percent,” he said.
In his remarks earlier, chairman of the committee, Hon. Patrick Umoh, charged the CMDs of University Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centers (FMCs) to be thorough in their presentations in order to provide a clear picture of their situations. “The reality is that you must extract the proposal made by Mr. President as it affects your medical centers,” he said.
