RipplesMetrics: From Belguim to UK, Nigerian-trained doctors, nurses are finding new homes

If you ask any Nigerian student doctor what their plans are after finishing their education, the natural answer will be to leave the country.

In fact, you only need to see the pictures from the Saudi Arabia doctors recruitment exercise in Abuja to understand how desperate and willing Nigerian doctors are to leave the country.

In 2017, the Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos Chapter put the total number of Nigerian doctors practicing abroad to be more than 40,000.

Ripples Nigeria conducted a research around 12 nations to determine which are the most appealing to Nigerian health workers wanting to migrate.

The countries include, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway. Others are Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Our check, using data sourced from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development website, shows that in the last 20 years (2000-2020), over 16,000 trained Nigerian doctors and Nurses have migrated to these countries.

Read also: RipplesMetrics: Is Buhari dead? What is love? Here are top questions Nigerians are asking Google in the last five years

As expected, United Kingdom is the most attractive country for Nigerian health workers as over 7,230 Nigerian doctors and 3,562 nurses migrated to the country.

The largest exodus in a single year took place in 2019, when over 1,347 Nigerian doctors left Nigeria to work in the United Kingdom.

The United States of America came in second as the most attractive country for Nigerian health workers.

According to OECD data, the United States welcomed 2,257 Nigerian doctors between 2002 and 2019.

Between 2000 and 2015, over 2,437 nurses left Nigeria to USA.

The graphical presentation gives full details of which countries are attractive to Nigerian doctors and nurses.

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