Following grossly inadequate number of medical doctors in Kwara State’s medical facilities occasioned by brain drain, the state government has cried out over its inability to recruit new doctors.
During the 2025 first quarter inter-ministerial press briefing in Ilorin, the state capital, the Executive Secretary of the state Hospital Management Board, Dr. Abdulraheem Abdulmalik regretted that the board could not find doctors to recruit for the state government, despite approval given by Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.
He further said that the state government had even gone a step further to offer incentives comparable to what are obtainable in the advanced countries to attract medical doctors.
Blaming the situation on the japa syndrome, Abdulmalik said: ‘We have approval of His Excellency to recruit doctors, but we can’t just find the doctors to recruit. Doctors are hot cakes now. If a doctor resigns in the morning, he will get another job in the afternoon’.
He said that that the state government presently has only 99 as against the required 180 to 200 medical personnel, adding that only 96 medical doctors were on the government’s payroll before now.
‘The three medical doctors that left the service returned after the recent increase in doctors’ salary by Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.
‘We actually had 96, but after His Excellency increased the salary, three of them that japa came back. So, we have 99 right now. We’re expecting more at the moment. We need about 180 to 200 medical doctors’.
The board said it is developing a software application that would give patients visiting its 45 health facilities, information on the number of doctors available at a particular period of time, to reduce delay in seeing doctors and avert a situation where sick patients would callapse while trying to be attended to by doctors at the hospitals.
The Executive Secretary said that the challenge was more pronounced in the rural areas, adding that the board was working out remuneration and incentives for doctors ‘with resources available, which will be at at par with what is obtainable in the Western world where most of the doctors were leaving for greaner pasture’.
He said that there is a retention plan by the state government to close the gap on the required number of medical doctors in the state, adding that the plan would commence in four years time.
Abdulmalik said: ‘On recruitment, we have presented the prerequisite to the Excellency on actually harvesting doctors from medical schools. So, the state government sponsors you as a student for, may be a year or two years, and you pay back by working for the state for those two years in which the state has invested in you.
‘That means we will continue to have a cycle of students. So, the state government sponsors you for three years, you work for the state government for three years before you japa. So, that would mean that there is a closing of the gap for medical doctors. Of course, that would kick off in about three to four years because we are starting from their Clinical Level, which is 400 Level’.
On the training of nurses and fear that they might thereafter leave the country for greener pastures, Abdulmalik said: ‘They will japa regardless, but we are not as desperate for the nurses as we are for doctors because the social circumstances favour nurses staying in the country. Most of the nurses are women and their movements depend on where their husbands are stationed. Some do japa, but we are not as desperate for nurses’.
He said that despite the challenges, the state’s health facilities continue to witness improved enrolment, saying that between Janaury and April this year, the 45 health facilities recorded 43,065 patients, including 12,000 pregnant women out of which 2,000 of them were newly registered.
He said that the state’s health facilities carried out 1,000 surgeries across the state’s health facilities within the first quarter of 2015.
The Executive Secretary said that the board recorded 1,384 child deliveries out of which 131 were carried out through caesarian sections.
According to him, the 131 caesarian sections were an improvement as they represent 9.5%, a figure he said came close to the World Health Organisation’s recomended range of 10-15%.
Abdulmalik added that 30 mortalities were also recorded across heath facilities during the period under review.
He announced plans by the state government to partner with indigenous drug manufactures to reduce the amount of foreign exchange the state was expending on procurement of drugs abroad.
The state Commissioner for Justice, Barrister Ibrahim Sulyman, who was represented by Barrister A. Grillo, said that 437 criminal cases were received in different courts in the first quarter of the year.
He said that 47 of the cases had been concluded, while 387 of the cases are still pending in different courts within and outside the state.
The commissioner also said that N689 million was generated to the coffer of the state government through vetting of contract sum agreement.
