Nigeria says 42,000 nurses left the country in 3 years as Nigeria toughens rules on working abroad
The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) is concerned over the high number of nurses leaving the country abroad.
According to the registrar, Faruk Abubakar, 42,000 nurses left the country in the past three years.
He noted that the exodus of nurses has led to a huge shortage at home whereas Nigeria’s healthcare system needed health practitioners.
“If we allow every Nigerian to leave as they graduate, who is going to handle our healthcare services?” he posed.
Abubakar spoke out after protests by the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives over new certification guidelines issued by the council.
The NMCN directive stipulated that nurses seeking verification of certificates to work abroad must pay a nonrefundable application fee and have two years of experience.
The regulations are meant to curb the exodus of health workers from Nigeria and additionally, all such applications will now take a minimum of six months to process.
The nurses have said the government should improve their working conditions instead of curtailing their freedom to practice where they want.
Abubakar also noted that the new guidelines were to protect the country’s image after several complaints about nurses who relocated abroad for work.
“Just last year, a number of nurses were found with fake documents in America and when we did a background search, about eight of them were not in our database,” he said.
