15 health workers resign every week in UCH, says CMD

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Professor Jesse Otegbayo says the incessant resignation and relocation of staff to other countries have started to take its toll on the running of the hospital as 661 clinical staff had resigned their roles from 2020 till 15th of October.

Professor Otegbayo, who spoke at a media briefing to mark the 65th founder’s day of the hospital, stated that these clinical staffs were mainly nurses, doctors, and pharmacists and the head of the department of anaesthesia recently wrote the hospital’s management say the department will be unable to cover the accident and emergency department because of the shortage of staff.
Professor Otegbayo stated, “every week, I receive about 15 registration letters; there are more nurses than doctors and pharmacists.

“The movement of health workers will continue for a while, I must confess but the consequences are not going to be good for Nigeria because, in the next 5 years, we will feel full impart.”

The CMD noted that the incessant resignation is not only happening in UCH, Ibadan but a global problem, adding, however, that the Federal government and the Federal Ministry of Health had already instituted committees to look at the retention of health workers.

According to him, the committee of CMDs of tertiary hospitals has also made suggestions on this to these different committees, including asking that the government ensure full replacement of staff that left.

He stated challenges faced by the hospital in providing training, research, and health care services also included the high cost of diesel to incessant electricity supply from the national grid, bureaucratic bottlenecks in replacing existing staffing, and negative perception and high expectations from the public.

Professor Otegbayo, who also highlighted milestones the hospital had recorded since his tenure as the CMD, declared that the hospital for the first time in Nigeria had commenced training in emergency medicine.