Nigeria debates mandatory domestic service to stem the medical brain drain

In April 2023, Nigeria’s lower legislative house debated a bill to try to stop the country’s newly trained doctors leaving to work in higher income nations such as the UK and the US. If passed, the amendment to the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act would require all medical and dental practitioners trained in Nigeria to practise there for a minimum period before obtaining a full licence.

Politicians and citizens alike often bring up the average cost of university education and medical degree training as one of the reasons Nigeria’s doctors shouldn’t leave the country. Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson, the politician who proposed the amendment, argues that it was fair for medical practitioners who had benefited from taxpayer subsidies to undergo mandatory service for a minimum number of years in Nigeria before taking their skills abroad.1

Nigeria’s minister of health, Osagie Ehanire, says, “The intention is good because it is talking about curbing [the] brain drain of doctors. If I can read the mind of Johnson properly, he wants to be able to keep those who have studied here a bit longer for some time before they can be free to go.”

The amendment is still being debated, but doctors are understandably outraged. Medical students at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital vehemently rejected the idea. Withholding licences is “hypocritical,” they told The BMJ, particularly since the government has consistently neglected investment in the country’s healthcare.