The exodus of healthcare professionals out of the country for greener pastures is taking a toll on service delivery in many teaching hospitals as critical departments in various facilities are left with fewer experienced hands.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that a lot of medical doctors, nurses and midwives, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists, physiotherapists, radiographers and other healthcare workers have migrated out of the country, thereby causing a dearth in the needed manpower at the facilities.
This further causes too much workload for the remaining staff, along with attendant burnout, delays in accessing health care for patients or poor quality, or no care at all for some.
Investigations revealed that some teaching hospitals, for instance, can no longer boast of a single medical doctor in specialities like nephrology, dermatology, cardiology, gynaecology, urology and dentistry, among others, to enable patients access care for kidney diseases and dialysis, skin care, heart diseases, female and male reproductive health and oral health.
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This has further led to a situation where certain key departments at teaching hospitals have been closed down completely or offer skeletal services.
As a result, some patients referred from secondary and primary levels of care and other states have to wait for months to access surgeries or procedures at teaching hospitals because of the non availability of requisite specialists.
