 And we're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa. Dr. T. Mehba, one dude joins us this morning. Happy holiday, Dr. Tui. Easter, Easter. Well, it's also a holiday. Happy Easter and a happy holiday. Yes, again, I've just been speaking about holiday. Please, where? Okay, it's fine. It's a holiday. It's a public holiday. You should know that. Well, it doesn't look like a public holiday because you're on air with me, but we'll just leave it at that. Let's get straight to the crux of the matter. Now, this conversation has dominated the space for about last week. And now, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria have said that they are rejecting the bill seeking to make it mandatory for fresh medical graduates to provide services to Nigeria for up until five years before receiving full registration and license to practice the association in a statement said that the bill being proposed by the House of Representatives was discriminatory and not in the interest of the people. He said that while the passion and consent for the health of Nigerians was demonstrated by Abiodu Dhaniyu, Johnson, by proposing the bill as peninsular for the physician's brain drain for all of the doctors that are moving away from Nigeria's commendable, the bill, however, is misdirected, ill-informed and poorly thought out. The association also said that the bill had a possible effect of doing the exact opposite of our gravitating the exodus, which has been, I mean, the issue where doctors are moving away medical practitioners and whatever you, and they have been having conversations with the executive arm of government to mitigate all of that. So this bill might just go ahead. It has gone through the second reading. Dr. T. Meber-Wandu, thank you so much. He's a health expert. He joins us this morning from in Lagos via Zoom. Dr. T, once again, thank you. Thank you for having me. I mean, before we get to the other parts of this bill and looking at all the crocs and conversations that have been up following this particular bill that has made it to the second reading, I'd like to share your initial reaction when you read and saw this. The first thing was actually I was a guest. I was actually, you know, concerned. Concerned at the level of thinking that dominates our legislation and can somebody just wake up without doing proper deception and understanding of the issue of hand and then look at a short cut, a short cut that will actually have a direct opposite of what he intends to do. What is the issue here? You observe that there is excellence of medical doctors and health doctors out of Nigeria. Are you, in your own wisdom, you think that the best way for this to love the door so that they don't go away? Are you displaying a lot of ignorance about the legislation process of the new doctors? And then you thought that once you love them inside, then they will be compelled to work. Number one, it shows that the man actually is not, he should be there, should be in the house of a red member. Here are the reasons. The shortage of health practitioners, including doctors, is pan-Africa. It's actually global, but Africa is worse. In Africa, the whole of Africa, we have about 300,000 doctors and about 1.2 million nurses. Let's put it that way. And then we're having a shortage by 20 times the number of 6.1 million doctors. That's something we're looking at. So it's a big issue. If you compare it to other parts of the world, you look at Pacific region, Japan, China, Malaysia, and those who only have as much as 4.2 million doctors and 7.6 million nurses, massive number in the week. It was definitely that they are still moving away and don't even have enough in the week. Now secondly, you see that the challenge in Nigeria is production of people with doctors because as it is now, we need about 12,000 doctors every year for the next 30 years, for instance. They were producing barely 3,000. 3,000 will have to go to the different areas of work. Out of this number of 3,000 you're producing, they are being faced with strikes, they are being faced with challenges of health to actually train properly. Then the key issue of university capacity to train them is there. Even when they finish training, they want to enter into house washing, they want to enter into residency. There are no spaces. A lot of them, even the few that are remaining, don't even have jobs. To take off, when they don't have jobs, they'll sit down, look for money, probably raise money, and say, please, instead of you staying here, after spending a lot of money, after spending many years, please do exam, do abroad. This is one of the key factors driving the excellence of those young doctors out of the country. No placement, no job. And sometimes when they have to do the job, they have to do a job that plays a tiny amount of money that is not commencing with all the activities, all the stress they put into the service. They say, I have younger ones studying medicine. I have two that are like my children studying medicine. In Nigeria, I know what they're going through. So now, and I also have those ones that are finished and are looking for placements, they cannot be trained. So where do you want them to stay? Where do you want them to be looking? Where they cannot get, and where there's some other ones who are looking for them? So it's quite concerning that who are supposed to put proper thinking into health system and how to drive health services and looking of how to lock people inside. It's just like saying that you're having insecurity in this country that, okay, the best thing you want to do is that, when you don't have that, it's best to lock yourself inside the place. And then they should, you forget that talent seeks where it is appreciated. When you have a talent, you have to aggress to where you can be appreciated, where you can be compensated, where you can be loved. And you have sequentially strikes, lack of food, poor condition, poor clinical governor, all this is already resetting health system. And demand is not thinking about that. And the only reason, this is a concerning part of it, the only reason they gave that doctors should stay for five years before the legislation is that they subsidized training of doctors. Please, I want you not to substantiate it because I have people that I'm trained as doctors. I want to see where the subsidy came from. Secondly, I guess lawyers were subsidized, politicians were subsidized, was subsidizing the politicians. A lot of all the people that are engineers are subsidized. Accountants are subsidized because they train the same, if they train the same university, that means the same applied to them. Then how are you collecting that subsidy money from them? Doctor will do one year has passed for first week, that enough is not enough for you to pay because you have paid their purchase off, that is not enough to cancel your subsidies. What will happen is that if anybody choose to push this bill ahead, they won't buy, unless you go in to study medicine, you will not pick medicine again. That will worsen the situation. Secondly, when this one finishes, they will seek appointment elsewhere, apart from core health sectors. They look for appointment elsewhere. They can go and join consultancy firm, they can even join any other financial institution. Doctors are very adaptive, they can do a lot of things. They can even join a tattoo, they will just leave the work and then it will worsen what you're trying to solve. It's a very poor thinking and it's very concerning. You know, so I mean, you got me there when you said that doctors are very flexible, they can join a Nigerian, it's not flexible. Can we not just be, you know, whatever it is that you want us to be at a certain time? That's on the light to know. But I like us to look at, you know, the reason why this bill became, has gone through the second reading and that's why it's, you know, facing a lot of criticism across board, is that it's supposed to be like a solution for physicians' brain drain. The fact that medical practitioners and doctors are leaving, it's supposed to be a solution to carving it. What are your thoughts? Do you think that, let's look at why this became a conversation that we're having now. It's supposed to reduce brain drain. Do you think that these will help reduce brain drain? What exactly should be done there to reduce the brain drain? It will reduce brain drain. You know, first and foremost, we need to do a proper thinking. How many doctors do we meet in this nation? Because if you don't have a solution, doctors, your capacity, let me just, you will have to work out in your capacity to deliver even your basic healthcare services will be compromised. You understand, immunization will be challenged, maternal death will be challenged. Treating for chronic illnesses and treating them will be challenged. So recently, our prominent Agile Senator ended up in a mess and ended up messing up the country in the United Kingdom about kidney transplantation. I have all these things because Agile has experienced a lot of chronic illness. How do you deal with them if you don't have doctors? Now, the key question is that, how do you deal with brain drain? You see there are key issues. There's all the pull factor and the push factor. We spoke about this several times. Now, here in Nigeria, we have to take up security. The basic thing is that you have to increase doctors' production. How do you increase doctors' production? Encourage them to pick science. It certifies the study of science. It certifies the training of doctors with the sense that can you give scholarship? Can you give grants? Can you even give some additional directions? It's okay. PTF or whatever your structural funds to people that are studying healthcare services and healthcare courses. It's also a number. Can you do that? Can you support the training of the doctors and cube the hospitals, hire more consultants, render them appropriately, and then expose them to the fact? Because before, the doctors had a 30-year of pro-graduate training. Some of the years of pro-graduate training actually goes abroad for exposure, for further exposure. But all this is when it comes to brain drain, there's more, right? You just work up on it and it comes out of the sense. And that, of course, we impact, you know, on the center for people to practice medicine. What it should also be doing is that create an environment in this nation that will ensure that there will be reverse brain drain, all for brain gain. Can you come and set up centers here and run health facilities in an environment that is very much of kidnapping, lack of infrastructure, extortion, you know, government neglect, because even people that are actually getting involved in healthcare in this country, you see a lot of negative reports from government, from institutions, from monitoring, from registry, a lot of problems. And they have to say, listen, enough and no further. I have to exit. So we need that kind of thing, encourage return, increase training, it certifies, you know, found workers training, acute, you said, acute hospital, and ensure that you have good clinical and enumeration. Well, as we course this conversation down, I'd like to ask you, if you think that this bill would see the light of day, it's scaled through the second reading, that's a lot of progress. Do you think? You and I have to laugh at this point. But again, I ask you, do you say this again? I think the foolish will be obvious to either the proponents or those supporting the bills. The foolish will be obvious to them and not the department, because again, let's face it, there's still going to be public hearing. You cannot just ram it down and push people to this kind of occasion. There's still going to be public hearing because the key stakeholders, it won't work. You know, because the key stakeholders in this case are too many, they have to be involved. The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has a structured process of giving you permanent registration. And it's a law. You cannot go and counsel the law that we interfere with that law or even interfere with our own freedom. Okay? I've not made the doctor to be punished by the state. That's the punishment. It's a foolish, it won't work. And then there's so many interests. You know? When you prove that to the doctors, the medical consultants and the state of Nigeria, even the enemy, everybody needs to be involved with this. Even the labor. Because once a doctor does his thing, a doctor then has to do his worship and get his permanent registration. That is the stream. How do you want to find them? If you find them, they'll go and get another worker. Then you know who's going to do your work. They'll go and work elsewhere. They have talents. You know, they'll work elsewhere. You know, at the end of the day, I can imagine, you know, a lot of doctors now joining entertainment, a lot of doctors joining consultancy, which a lot of them are already doing. Okay? Or even getting involved in, you know, some drink crash courses, not a lot of courses. I joined those courses. They'll perform well. It's not a big deal. Okay? So then, how do you not get that? You have to somebody for seven years. Somebody has been trained for seven years. You want to go and hold them down for five years. And in that, most of them spend up to 10 years. Well, well. You want to add five years to them, five years. For what now? What is that experience in Nigeria? So I mean, it's a criminal thing on this day. It's so disgraceful. Doctor, to you, I can feel your pause this morning. I can feel your pause. I can feel your spirit. But it can only get better. Thank you so much for making our time to be with us on, you know, Eastern Monday, a public holiday. We do appreciate you. Have a fantastic day. Well, that's the size of our conversation. We've been speaking with an expert, a health expert right here in Lagos, Dr. Thuy, a member of Wandoo. He shared his thoughts as to the bill and what he thinks is very criminal of the government to think about it or whoever is proposing this bill is not a solution to what you're thinking about. There are other issues that should be paid attention to. And we'll leave it at this. I'm hoping that this conversation won't end until we see the end of it. But that's the size of our conversation on the breakfast. We thank you so much for being part of the show. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. We'll join the newsroom at 9 o'clock for the news brief. In the meantime, have a fantastic holiday and a happy Easter Monday. My name is Messi Bopu.