Nigeria mulls performance-based remuneration to check brain drain in health sector

The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said on Tuesday the Federal Government would implement performance-based remuneration for health workers in a bid to check the brain drain in the sector.

Ehanire stated this while fielding questions from journalists during the 17th edition of President Muhammadu Buhari’s scorecard series from 2015–2023 in Abuja.

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) said in October last year that 10,296 medical professionals from the country are now working in the United Kingdom.

The minister, however, said the exodus of health workers was not peculiar to Nigeria.

He said: “This is not really an exodus. The very high workforce mobility of health workers is global. Doctors and nurses are moving everywhere. I have had to speak with other ministers, even Ghana, they are losing doctors. So, there is high mobility in the health sector workforce globally. So, we should not knock ourselves as if we are the only victims on earth.

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“This movement is global and what we are doing about it, first of all, is to do everything we can to improve the condition of service. We have improved the hazard allowance, and we are looking at how to improve remuneration.

“We are also looking at how to introduce a better form of performance-based remuneration so that doctors don’t just receive a simple grade-level salary but according to their work, so we try to measure performance and let people be happy that they have properly been rewarded for what they have done.

“Right now, doctors and nurses don’t feel they are properly rewarded for the work they are doing, so that will help a lot.”

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