University teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres (FMCs) would soon become empty as doctors, nurses and other skilled health workers leave in droves due to poor remuneration.
The 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
Despite the investment the Federal Government has made in health infrastructure, they lamented that the trend has continued unabated and affecting healthcare services in Nigeria.
Professor Adeyemo said more medical workers are leaving the country at an alarming rate, and called for urgent intervention to address the situation.
He 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 in 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”.
According to the CMD, they had a budget of N19.2 billion out of which personnel had N13.57 billion and a total overhead of N33.2 million.
He said “In terms of performance and utilization total overhead was 100 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”.
Prof. Adeyemo said the hospital had 95 per cent personnel performance because of payment of benefits and other activities due to resignation and retirements in the year, adding that “For the proposal for 2025, a total budget of 32.7 billion, out of which a total overhead which is better than that of last year. Personnel is 20.3. I think it’s 13 last year.”
Corroborating Professor Adeyemo, Chief Medical Director (CMD), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Prof. Abiodun, said the delay in the release of budgeted funds to the hospital adversely affected their operations.
He said in 2024, UCH had a capital appropriation of N5,593,110,394, but lamented that only 38 per cent of the funds was released leaving a balance of 72 percent left.
He said, “We have 72 per cent left. Yes, we actually were among the last people to be bathed for payment, and the payment started coming in actually in December. We were able to even utilize this 38 per cent because we had already done the cash plan before the release.
“For 2025, we are proposing N4,387,763,661 for capital. This is a bit less than what we had in 2024. And that’s because of this envelope system, what we’re given, we have to work with it.
“The overhead, we have N690,006,464 only. There’s a bit of increase over that of 2024 because of the outrageous bills we are getting from Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company”.
In his remark earlier, the Chairman, House Committee on Health Institutions, Patrick Umoh, told the CMDs to be thorough in their presentations in order to provide a clear picture of their situations.
He said, “The reality is that you must extract the proposal made by Mr. President as it affects your medical centres. It should be part of your budget, your presentation. The report of the 2024 budget performance and 2025 budget
