 And we're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa time for us to talk about, you know, the issues around in the health sector and the education sector. Well, the health sector is battling its worst brain drain for 2023 with no fewer than 10,229 Nigerian trained doctors practicing in the United Kingdom. This is according to the Nigerian Medical Association. Also, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors said the number of medical doctors in the country decreased daily. I think that only about 10,000 resident doctors are left in Nigeria. Well, according to the president of the association, Dr. Meka Oji, about 100,000 or 100 megaparton resident doctors leave the country monthly to seek greener pastures. Insecurity, poor pay and poor working conditions among other issues have been identified as the push factors for the healthcare workers leaving the country. Besides the brain drain, health infrastructure only with us, you know, if it's lived in new teaching hospitals, but not quite as significant considering the various levels that we have. Now, apart from the massive migration of medical personnel to Europe and North America, the same may soon be with us in the education sector as the United Kingdom begins employment of qualified Nigerian teachers from February 2023. We're talking about next month. Now, currently 350,000 Nigerian teachers qualified for such employment from a pool of 1.5 million. So you have to do the calculation. Now, the teachers registration council of Nigeria, Tirao CN, will from February the first 2023 be exempted from sitting or for qualified courses with teaching regulation agency. That's a Tirao, thereby giving qualified teaching status QTS in England. The QTS in England is equivalent of Nigeria's teaching license by the TRCN. So the big question here is where does this leave us as a people? Where does this leave us as a country? Now, to make sense of all of this, we have our guests this morning in the studio. Dr. Meba Wendu. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Good morning. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, by the way. We also have on phone joining us Professor Hope Ehara joining us. Yeah, yeah. Professor Hope, can you hear us? I can hear you. Well, thank you for joining. Good morning and happy New Year. Thank you. Alright, so let's start off with Dr. Tui here in the studio. Dr. Tui, what do we make of this? We hear that we have 24,000 licensed doctors. And as of 2023, according to recent statistics, the population of Nigeria has been pegged at 218 million. Plus, how do we survive with 24 licensed doctors to take care of a population? 24,000. 24,000, I beg your pardon. Licensed doctors to take care of a population of about 2,218 million Nigerians. Well, thank you. I'm not just about the available 24,000 who actually renewed their registration with Nigeria Medical and Deter Council. You know that in the next seven years, by 2030, Nigeria population will rise to close to 280 million people. And the estimate is that you probably need an extra 500,000 nurses and 125,000 or 130,000 doctors to work and deliver your healthcare system. But what we have now is such that Nigeria's capacity to train is compromised. Nigeria's capacity to retain doctors is also compromised. And even our ability to update the quality of the doctor. You know, we have charges with the numbers. We have charges with the mix of the doctors having different type of specialties and even including nurses. We have a problem with distribution. We have a problem with the quality and in fact, we have a problem with the delivery of the outcomes of the healthcare system. Outcomes in terms of, you know, is the person getting well. Outcomes is even the treatment acceptable culturally. There are a lot of issues as far as the number of health workers and their quality is concerned. Now, the key thing is that if you have input into the health system, health workforce is very fundamental. The other is building capitals and then of course, consumables. So, you know, the same input is just that the hospital, the doctors or the nurses or the pharmacists as health workers then input. Other input include building, capital, and then of course, consumables. So, if you look at Nigeria, WHO recommended that we should have one doctor for 600 people. But the country with that 24,000 is just having one doctor for as much as 8,000. And the numbers are reducing. Now, if that shows that for us to meet that target in 2030, we need to still train, you know, we need a number of doctors that is close to 300,000. We need that large number of doctors. So, what are we going to do? Where are we going to get all these doctors? Now, you cannot respond to your health challenge if you don't have health workers. We are having challenges with maternal health. We are having challenges with infant mortality. We are having challenges with malnutrition. We are having challenges with conic diseases, diabetes, hypertension. Accidents are happening. You've got still amyloboridine of a simple gunshot injury. Drug epidemic is coming on. You need health workers to respond to all these things. Now, if you are going to have 24,000 doctors in 2023, it means essentially that you are in a really dire crisis situation. Let me give you an example. I left medical school since 1988. That should be about 35 years or 34 years going to for that five years. My number is 6,776. And your number for what? My number is 16,767. That's my number. That was 40 years ago. That's what doctors had in Nigeria. 35 years ago. But now, the number is now over to 100,000. So it means that in the space of how many years, 35 years, Nijiaq will not dream as much as 40,000 doctors in addition. Because we will produce about 3,000 maximum. If you add strength to it, then it means that we are not having a requisite number in terms of capacity to train. People are not doing science subjects that will make them enter medical school. The medical school is under funded. They are not having sufficient teachers to train them there. You know, even to do a sponsorship and compulsory training as for consultancy. Everything is compromised. So that's where we are now. It seems there's no hope. But again, how do you respond to our health challenges? Okay, let's also bring in Professor Hope at this point. We're talking about, unfortunately, we have been disconnected. We hope that we have him back on the line and to talk further about the issue. Professor Hope, can you hear us? Yes. So what do you make of the recent development as a call? Well, we don't know yet whether the Nigerian teachers would move or stay. But what do you make of the call by the United Kingdom looking for teachers, right? Especially from some southern countries. Nigerians among these countries. Okay. Well, I think, thank you for having me on this program. I think that I can give you a video because of connection with Southern Indians. Well, let me make a simple question. This is that labor is always migrating to where it could be there. I'll take it again. Labor would always migrate to where it could be there and that's what it needs to do. So if I take a very new world view of this, I would say that even in the best of times, countries who are professionals are very likely to migrate, to move, to work, that's 70, I mean there and where they'll be appreciated. But an application comes in from both remuneration, world craft, I love that too. In times of economies because nations stuff out what Nigeria is currently doing, which is migration of people. Put simply, we're saying that when an economy is depressed, especially when an economy is huge, a lot of Nigeria, that you are being estimated to be at 200 million, we're born with migrants. But the question today is what are the implications on the system? We started with medical doctors. Well, we need medical doctors. We need our medical doctors. But our medical doctors are not properly treated here. Labor will find its way to where it could be appreciated. Only yesterday, a medical doctor was piloted by the family of a patient. We're not going to do that. Because when they brought the patient to the hospital, they said, okay, I will see to that, please go ahead and get the police report and then the patient died. They came back and came in. How do you expect our doctors to be comfortable, to feel safe enough? His wife is called to the doctor. That wife is traumatized forever. Why for teachers? Go to our public family school. Go to our public secondary schools. Now that is moving to the university. We're requiring action of the incumbent government. When you treat teachers with legacy, when you treat lecturers with legacy, what will happen to them? They will migrate. We need to get our doctors to be vulnerable. There is no amount of the exertion that you will give to medical doctors. There is no amount of exertion you will give to teachers. They have that opportunity that they want to give to the new teachers. There we go. There we go. Oh my God. I'm talking about the lives of people here. How much did you pay out of that? In the university system, in extra two weeks, this year, you go home, you go home, you pay 25,000 at the end of this month. If you had an opportunity to do this on this open, you think you would make it, huh? So, if you take it for that person, we will go on with the next week. We'll pay to do now, and because we need the services, you see, I was, I spent some time in New York, and I found out in that area, that area of New York, we had about 4,000 doctors from Nigeria. I'm not talking about 4,000, 4,000. These are the people who were trained in UI, trained in Uri-Land, trained at E-Fair. So, I'd like to ask you this, because we're really running out of time. There's also a response from the NUT as regards the proposition of the United Kingdom and their concern of having teachers move from different parts of the world. Hong Kong is part of some of these countries in Nigeria as well. But the NUT is saying that they are looking for cheap labor and that's almost a doubt that Nigerians might probably not move. So, do you see a possibility of Nigerian teachers going? And is there anything that the Nigerian government can do at this point? Because we'll probably be losing our hands, and it might not just be good enough for the education sector. So, is there anything that can be done? Is there a tendency that there will go? Well, there is good room for clarity by saying that the NUT government is looking for cheap labor. If you have girls, if you have encounters, if you are spoken with Nigerians that are in the diaspora, if you are spoken with Nigerians that are going to the death rate journey, they will tell you that they would rather be cleaner in Italy, road tripers in London than graduate teachers in Nigeria. So, there is no amount of education. I'm raising Nigeria as a people of my generation. I don't believe that we can use Nigeria. However, what the Nigerian government can do is to show concern and improve our services. At this time, you remember at this time when the Nigerian economy was bad, Nigeria was falling by a demand. Now, the time when the Indian economy was bad, Nigeria was falling by an Indian, an Asian. I was forced by an Asian in second grade school. But when the economy was good, we all went back. So, Nigeria used to also sit back and improve the economy. We have 2,000 practices in America. Who in Russia back home want to stabilize their lives in Nigeria? So, what we're going to do, come in the election, let's vote for a government that we can revitalize Nigeria. And I show that the political people and our professionals will come back home. They don't enjoy life at all. They don't, because at all, there are several classes in it. And you see more people if they are here illegally. If they are in deserts, that's about worry. If they are here illegally, if they are in Nigeria, they can help people. Dr. Meberwondu, Professor, I hope we have to come back to the studio and we're costing it down now. Thank you so much for your thoughts. We do appreciate you. But let's get back to Dr. Tuyi Meberwondu. Tuyi, why are we living in the medical? It's obvious. Because the condition is also not favorable. No, it's obvious. We've also had complaints from doctors. There are several complaints. No, there are great complaints. First and foremost, we have our push factors. When you work, and for the next six months, nobody's paying you salary, you will live. Because you have bills to pay. No, we see people who work with us. Yeah, you have people to pay. When your condition of service is so poor, you have to use lanterns to do surgery. You will live. When you cannot ascend to the peak of your profession, and you are not facing a lot of political background, you will live. When you have children to take care of, and they're not having the best of education, and they are thinking about their future, you will live. Okay, well, there's a lot of education. Some of them tell you to murder you because you felt that you are God, that was healed every injury. You will live. So the factors are just many, plenty, plenty. But let me tie the concern of education to training of doctors. Now, if you don't fix education system, you can't fix care system. Let's get it straight. What I mean by fixing education system is that, you see, you must be strategically recruiting science teachers that will be able to teach and call people to enter into the health workforce. Because if we don't fix science, how are they going to be trained? I said that in nurse, pharmacist, labric scientist, or a doctor. So you have to fix education system, and it's important. And if UK succeeds in taking our teachers, it's not just going to affect health, you know, if you affect politics, it will affect thinking, it will affect society. Because the starting point, the starting point of training society around this education, education is not just a social concern. Education is an economic issue, is a political issue, is a health issue. So, you know, the first thing is, if we're wise, if you understand that, we should know that we should never allow our teachers, and they're going to pick the best, and leave the crumbs, and leave the crumbs for us, who will not give us turn to hand education? And the country is very likely. But we want to have this conversation, we should have this conversation some other time, for real, because I'm worried. And the question is, what is the government doing? I don't know if there's any, you know, responsible. I'm not sure I want to get an answer immediately from you. We'll come back some other time, we'll come back some other time, and talk about, you know, what the government is doing, to ensure that we don't have all of this movement. Because we're talking about the personnel, the manpower here. If they move, then what becomes of, you know, our country, Nigeria, quite unfortunate. That's the size of it at this point in time. Thank you so much, Professor, hope for being part of the show. And also, thank you, Dr. T, you remember I want you for being with us this morning. We appreciate your time. Thank you.