United Kingdom/Nigeria (Commonwealth Union)_The UK Government has made a decision to stop the recruitment of Nigerian healthcare workers to alleviate brain drain in Nigeria. While brain drain is symptomatic in under-developed and developing countries as a consequence of cascading unemployment leading to abject poverty, malnutrition and hunger, the exodus of healthcare workers to the UK from Nigeria and other low and lower-middle-income countries is challenging these countries in meeting its key performance objectives in healthcare including social and health development goals.
The UK has placed Nigeria on the red list of nations which are not to be targeted for recruitment.
The announcement comes in the wake of the World Health Organisation identifying Nigeria as one of the fifty five countries in the world facing workforce challenges especially in the healthcare worker category. The mass migration of healthcare workers to greener pastures also means that Nigeria was facing massive brain drain via a rapid depletion of qualified healthcare workers sorely required for its own people’s healthcare needs.
The WHO Global Code of Practice 10-year review explicitly called on developed countries not to recruit healthcare workers from listed countries as these healthcare workers should be prioritized for personnel development and system-related support. “They should not be targeted by any recruiting body unless a G2G agreement was established for allow for managed recruitment implemented under strict compliance to the TOR of the agreement,” it stated.
The UK government’s website highlighted the directive in its Code of Practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel in England.
This is not the first time the UK has suspended the recruitment of healthcare workers from developing and under-developing countries. In 2021, it halted recruitment from 46 countries including Nigeria. Currently, according to the UK General Medical Council, there are 11,055 doctors from Nigeria working in the UK. While India and Pakistan have the highest number of doctors working in the UK, Nigeria comes at third place.
