The Medical Director of Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Musa Olomu, has asserted that until Nigerian doctors and other medical personnel receive the salaries and incentives they deserve, migration to developed countries will continue.
Olomu, while acknowledging the Federal government’s efforts to boost the healthcare sector by increasing medical school admissions and building healthcare infrastructure, maintained that more needs to be done to retain medical talent.
He spoke in Abeokuta on Thursday at a press conference where he presented his scorecard after eight years in office.
The medical director, who will bow out of office on May 31, said the salaries paid to most doctors are insufficient to take care of their families, especially those with children abroad.
Olomu said, “They are increasing admission into medical schools, building pharmacies, laboratory technology facilities, those things are increasing, not that they are reducing the number of doctors relocating to the US, UK, and Europe. Let them also give us the incentives that we deserve.
“Give us the salaries that we deserve as the colonial masters were doing in those days when they treated us as number two immediately after the Director General. Then doctors will stay. You can imagine, in this hospital, my doctors separated cancer from the nerves and bones, and the patient lived again.
“What are they doing in the US? What are they doing in the UK? It was here at FMC that cancer was removed. What is the salary of those doctors? Around 700,000 to 800,000. What are they going to do with that? And you say they shouldn’t go to where they will be paid 10 million per month so that they will be able to take care of their wives and children?
“Fine, they have invested a lot in the health sector. Yes, they are training pharmacists and doctors, but they should make sure that their incentives and salaries are paid so that we can stay back and do the necessary things,” he added.
Olomu, reflecting on his eight-year tenure as Medical Director, said the hospital has been upgraded to a world-class standard, with the procurement of modern equipment and the recruitment of a large number of qualified medical and non-medical staff.
