By Iroyin Yoruba Television
Health experts, policymakers and healthcare professionals have called for increased investment and broader reforms to address persistent shortages, uneven distribution and migration of healthcare workers in Nigeria.
The call was made on Thursday, October 1, 2026, during a webinar organised by the Doctors Medical Aid Foundation under the theme, “Nigeria’s Health Workforce Crisis: An Evidence-Informed Conversation on the Future of Nigeria’s Health Workforce.”
The discussion brought together healthcare professionals, policymakers, development partners and other stakeholders to examine the pressures facing Nigeria's health workforce and the implications for healthcare delivery across the country.
Participants discussed shortages of healthcare personnel, migration, poor working conditions, remuneration, retention and the growing debate over task-shifting and task-sharing as possible responses to workforce gaps.
The conversation comes amid continuing concern about Nigeria's ability to maintain adequate numbers of skilled health professionals while meeting the healthcare needs of a rapidly growing population.
During the webinar, participants were asked to identify the most significant challenges confronting the country's health workforce.
Poor remuneration was identified by 46 per cent of respondents as the leading concern, followed by poor working conditions and inadequate numbers of healthcare workers.
The findings illustrate that Nigeria's workforce challenge is not simply about the total number of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and other health professionals available.
The distribution of workers is also an important part of the problem.
Healthcare professionals are not evenly distributed across Nigeria. Urban centres and areas with major hospitals and teaching institutions tend to have greater access to specialised personnel, while rural and underserved communities frequently face difficulties attracting and retaining professionals.
This creates a situation in which the availability of healthcare can differ substantially depending on where a person lives.
For patients in communities with limited healthcare personnel, the shortage can mean longer journeys to hospitals, longer waiting times and difficulty accessing specialist services.
It can also place additional pressure on the health workers who remain in understaffed facilities.
When fewer professionals are available to serve a large number of patients, existing workers may face heavier workloads and longer working hours. Over time, these conditions can contribute to fatigue, dissatisfaction and decisions to seek employment elsewhere.
The webinar therefore focused on the need to look beyond individual interventions and consider the wider health system.
Delivering the keynote address, Dare Bodunrin, a former Senior Programme Officer at the Gates Foundation, warned against treating Nigeria's workforce problem separately from other weaknesses within the health system.
He argued that interventions that have produced results in other countries cannot simply be transferred to Nigeria without considering differences in health-system capacity and operating conditions.
This point is important because health workforce policies operate within broader systems.
A doctor or nurse cannot provide effective care without appropriate facilities, equipment, medicines, diagnostic services, electricity, water, transportation and functioning referral systems.
Increasing the number of health workers without improving the environment in which they work may therefore fail to produce the expected improvement in patient care.
Similarly, improving salaries without addressing working conditions, professional development and career progression may not completely solve retention problems.
The experts' call for broader reform reflects this interconnected nature of healthcare delivery.
One of the major issues discussed was task-shifting and task-sharing.
Task-shifting involves allowing certain healthcare responsibilities traditionally performed by more highly specialised professionals to be carried out by appropriately trained workers with different levels of qualification.
Task-sharing involves distributing responsibilities among members of a healthcare team according to their skills and training.
These approaches can help expand access to services when there are shortages of highly specialised professionals.
For example, appropriately trained health workers may be able to provide certain services that would otherwise require direct involvement from a doctor.
However, participants cautioned that task-shifting should not be regarded as a complete solution to Nigeria's workforce crisis.
If the underlying shortage of trained professionals remains unresolved, simply transferring additional responsibilities to existing workers could increase pressure on them.
Task-shifting also requires appropriate training, supervision, clear professional responsibilities and adequate resources.
Patients must be able to trust that the person providing a service has the necessary competence and that complex cases can be referred promptly when required.
The discussion therefore pointed towards the need for a balanced approach.
Nigeria needs more health workers, but it also needs a system capable of training, employing, deploying, supporting and retaining them.
Training is one of the first challenges.
Producing additional doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and other health professionals requires functioning educational institutions, clinical training facilities and qualified instructors.
Training a health professional also takes time. Consequently, workforce planning must anticipate future needs rather than responding only after shortages become severe.
Retention is another major issue.
Healthcare professionals who receive training in Nigeria may eventually seek employment in other countries where they perceive better remuneration, working conditions, career opportunities or professional support.
International migration can provide individual professionals with new opportunities, but sustained outward migration can create difficulties for the country that trained them.
When experienced healthcare professionals leave, hospitals can lose not only individual workers but also mentors, supervisors and specialists who contribute to training younger professionals.
This can create a cycle in which remaining staff carry greater responsibilities, potentially increasing dissatisfaction and encouraging further departures.
The experts therefore emphasised the importance of policies that make remaining in Nigeria professionally and economically sustainable.
Improving remuneration is one component, but broader working conditions also matter.
Healthcare workers require safe workplaces, adequate staffing, functioning equipment, opportunities for professional development and transparent career structures.
They also need confidence that their concerns will be addressed through functioning institutional mechanisms.
The distribution of health workers presents another policy challenge.
Government can train more professionals, but if most eventually concentrate in major cities, communities in remote and underserved areas may continue to experience shortages.
Effective workforce planning therefore requires strategies for encouraging deployment and retention in areas where health needs are greatest.
Such strategies can include incentives, professional development opportunities, improved accommodation, better infrastructure and stronger support for healthcare facilities outside major urban centres.
The quality of healthcare infrastructure can influence whether professionals are willing to work in underserved communities.
A qualified healthcare worker placed in a facility without reliable electricity, essential medicines, diagnostic equipment or adequate accommodation may face severe limitations in providing care.
Improving infrastructure can therefore form part of a workforce-retention strategy.
The experts' discussion also highlights the relationship between workforce availability and universal health coverage.
Universal health coverage requires people to have access to needed healthcare services without suffering financial hardship.
However, financial protection alone cannot guarantee access if there are insufficient professionals available to provide the services.
A patient may have access to an insurance or government-supported healthcare programme but still face long delays if a facility does not have enough qualified personnel.
Nigeria's workforce challenge is therefore directly connected to its wider health-sector objectives.
Primary healthcare is particularly affected.
Primary healthcare centres are often the first point of contact between communities and the formal health system. They provide services such as maternal and child healthcare, immunisation, disease prevention, health education and treatment of common illnesses.
When such facilities lack adequate personnel, communities may bypass them and travel directly to larger hospitals.
This can increase pressure on secondary and tertiary facilities.
A stronger workforce at the primary-care level could help improve early diagnosis, prevention and treatment while reducing unnecessary pressure on major hospitals.
However, improving primary healthcare requires more than assigning workers to facilities.
Workers need medicines, equipment, supervision, referral systems and opportunities to develop their skills.
The webinar also raised broader questions about the future of Nigeria's health workforce.
Technology may increasingly become part of the solution.
Telemedicine, digital health records, remote consultations and other digital systems can help healthcare professionals extend their reach and improve communication between facilities.
But technology cannot completely replace physical healthcare workers.
Many services require direct examination, procedures, emergency intervention or other forms of physical care.
Digital tools should therefore be viewed as complementary instruments rather than substitutes for adequate staffing.
Another area requiring attention is data.
Effective workforce planning depends on knowing how many professionals are available, where they work, what skills they possess and where shortages are most severe.
Reliable workforce data can help government determine where new training places are required, where recruitment should be concentrated and which communities need incentives to attract professionals.
Without accurate information, workforce policies may not correspond to actual needs.
The experts also stressed the importance of investment.
Investment in healthcare workforce development includes more than salaries. It covers education, training institutions, professional development, infrastructure, equipment, working conditions and systems for recruitment and retention.
Long-term investment is particularly important because workforce development cannot be achieved through short-term programmes alone.
A doctor, nurse or other health professional may require several years of education and training before becoming fully qualified.
Government and stakeholders therefore need to plan over longer periods.
Private-sector participation may also have a role in expanding healthcare capacity.
Private hospitals, clinics, medical organisations and development partners already contribute to healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
However, cooperation between public and private institutions needs appropriate regulation to ensure that expansion of private services complements rather than undermines access to essential public healthcare.
The migration of health professionals also requires a balanced policy response.
Nigeria cannot necessarily prevent professionals from seeking international opportunities, particularly within a global labour market.
Instead, policies can focus on improving domestic conditions, establishing mechanisms for knowledge transfer and creating opportunities for professionals abroad to contribute to Nigerian healthcare through training, investment, research or temporary programmes.
The objective should be to reduce the negative effects of workforce shortages while recognising the legitimate professional mobility of healthcare workers.
The experts' discussion therefore presents Nigeria's workforce challenge as a complex issue with no single solution.
More training is necessary, but training alone will not solve the problem.
Better salaries are important, but remuneration alone may not guarantee retention.
Task-shifting can expand services, but it cannot replace the need for adequate numbers of properly trained professionals.
Technology can improve access and efficiency, but it cannot eliminate the need for physical healthcare workers.
Infrastructure investment can improve working conditions, but facilities also require people with the appropriate skills to operate them.
The challenge is consequently to build a health system in which these elements reinforce one another.
For patients, the importance of the issue is ultimately reflected in everyday access to healthcare.
A shortage of healthcare workers can mean delays in receiving treatment, difficulty obtaining specialist consultations and greater pressure on hospitals.
In emergencies, the consequences can be particularly serious because timely intervention often depends on having qualified professionals available when they are needed.
Strengthening the workforce could therefore have effects across virtually every part of Nigeria's health system.
The October 1 discussion provides another indication that workforce development remains a central concern for healthcare stakeholders.
As Nigeria continues efforts to improve healthcare delivery, policymakers will have to consider how many professionals the country needs, where they should be deployed, how they can be supported and what measures can encourage them to remain in the system.
The answers will require cooperation between government, healthcare institutions, training organisations, professional associations, development partners and the private sector.
The health workforce is ultimately the human foundation of the healthcare system. Hospitals, equipment and technology cannot provide care without trained people to use them.
Nigeria's ability to improve health outcomes will therefore depend significantly on whether it can develop and retain a workforce capable of meeting the needs of its population.
The experts' latest call for greater investment and reform places that challenge at the centre of the national healthcare conversation, while highlighting the need for policies that address shortages, distribution, working conditions, professional development and migration together rather than treating them as separate problems.