Nigerian healthcare professionals are battling huge pressure, increasing workloads, rising burnout, and fatigue due to the country’s mass exodus of healthcare workers.
The Chief Medical Director of University College Hospital (UCH), Prof. Abiodun Otegbayo, stated this in Ibadan at the 36th National Conference of the Institute of Health Service Administrators of Nigeria (IHSAN).
According to him, healthcare institutions face compounding pressure to hire faster to meet urgent quotas because the recruitment processes are complex and slow.
“Recruitment processes have become a lot more complex, and there’s a need to fill up the empty spaces quickly.
“Hiring managers/units are often a major bottleneck. That’s especially acute right now, as healthcare professionals battle huge pressure, increasing workloads, rising burnout, and fatigue,” he said.
Otegbayo noted that healthcare recruiters must urgently address this dynamic, to accelerate the overall recruitment process. ‘If the recruitment is a burden for hiring managers, it simply won’t get done.
“If attracting healthcare workers into the sector is one challenge, keeping them there is another. Healthcare turnover is notoriously high Over two years, the average healthcare practice has a 51 per cent turnover rate. Across all healthcare roles, 24 per cent of all hires left within a year.
“Nurse turnover runs as high as 37 per cent depending on location and specialisation. Even if healthcare doubles, triples, or quadruples, successful rates- there’s no point pouring water into a leaky bucket.
“More to the point, it’s a waste of time and money- when healthcare recruiters are already short on both.
‘Plugging the leak must be an urgent priority for healthcare through 2022 and beyond and any approach must be cross-functional, not just recruitment-led,” the CMD said.
On enhancing the Nigerian healthcare system, he said improving the quality of healthcare services can’t be overstated when organisations across every sector can least afford rising costs and plummeting results following the severe global disruption. Unless healthcare companies stop haemorrhaging spending, care quality will suffer.
He urged healthcare recruiters to look for cost efficiencies throughout the recruitment cycle urgently.
“The age-old ‘do more with less’ dilemma has never been crystallised. One huge element of that will be reducing reliance on agencies.
‘If you were to ask any young person in Nigeria today what their plans are, professionally or otherwise, they would outline their steps to “Japa” without missing a beat.
“The exodus of Nigerians is not limited to young professionals though it is happening across all cadres. Nigeria is bleeding out its workforce at an alarming rate, and by default, we are providing skilled workers at a highly subsidized rate that are willing to pay the right price in terms of salaries, welfare packages and social packages,” Otegbayo said.
