Osagie Ehanire, Nigeria’s health minister has advised Nigerian doctors who are planning to leave the country for the UK that they would not be pampered with hazard allowance when the get there like Nigeria does.
He made the comment during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Thursday in Abuja in response to reports that 58 doctors were stopped last week by Immigration from leaving the country for the UK.
He said, “I think we are one of the few countries giving hazard allowance. This UK where they are going, there is no hazard allowance, they don’t give doctors hazard allowance but you just get your salary, that is all because I have spoken to the doctors there.
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“They say it is part of your job and that is what you are trained for. They don’t pay you anything but here apart from your salary we try to add something to it with the hope that you will stay. We also appeal to state governments to prioritise the employment of doctors some of whom have not been employed.”
“Even in the UK, they are losing doctors to other countries. So they think there is a movement but I think we have to look at our own situation the best way we can.
“With regards to the 58 doctors, we were all surprised to hear that they were at the airport and it was irregular in that many of them did not have visas. I don’t know what evidence you have whether they have left the country but no one should leave the country without a visa.
“Those who were trained through scholarship or whose training was subsidised and have jobs here actually have a moral responsibility to give back because even now we have large numbers of Nigerian doctors in the UK, the US and Europe who apply to come here every year and serve even though they weren’t trained here or at the state’s expense.
“It is just a moral obligation. They are called the Diaspora Health Professionals Initiative. Some spend their own money, come with their own equipment even though they owe the country nothing.”
