Journal Article

The COVID-19 pandemic and health workforce brain drain in Nigeria

Adebisi, Yusuff Adebayo, Kareem, Ahmed Adeseye, Abdulrasheed, Nasir, Aliu, Abdulwahab, Aborode, Abdullahi Tunde, Abdullah, Khalil-ur-Rahman, Kuza, Philemon Barnabas, Elelu, Taiye Muhammed, Lawal, Abdulwahab Oluwatomisin, Lawal, Lukman, Muhammad-Olodo, Abdulmujeeb Opeyemi, Amosu, Opeyemi Pius, Murwira, Tonderai

2022

Overview

Over the years, the Nigerian healthcare workforce, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have always been known to emigrate to developed countries to practice. However, the recent dramatic increase in this trend is worrisome. There has been a mass emigration of Nigerian healthcare workers to developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the push factors have been found to include the inadequate provision of personal protective equipment, low monthly hazard allowance, and inconsistent payment of COVID-19 inducement allowance on top of worsening insecurity, the pull factors are higher salaries as well as a safe and healthy working environment. We also discuss how healthcare workers can be retained in Nigeria through increment in remunerations and prompt payment of allowances, and how the brain drain can be turned into a brain gain via the use of electronic data collection tools for Nigerian health workers abroad, implementation of the Bhagwati’s tax system, and establishment of a global skill partnership with developed countries. Graphical Abstract

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Brain / Brain drain / Career advancement / Causes of / Comment / Coronaviruses / Councils / COVID-19 / COVID-19 pandemic / Data collection / Developed countries / Diaspora / Diplomatic & consular services / Emigration / Equality and Human Rights / Evaluation / Health aspects / Health care / Health care delivery / Health Personnel / Health Policy / Health Promotion and Disease Prevention / Health Services Research / Health Workforce / Healthcare workers / Humans / Immigration / Industrialized nations / Job satisfaction / Labor contracts / Medical brain-drain / Medical personnel / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Midwifery / Migration / Nigeria / Nurses / Pandemics / Pandemics - prevention & control / Personal Protective Equipment / Pharmacists / Protective equipment / Public Health / Skills / Social Justice / Social Policy / Work environment / Workforce / Working conditions