The Nigerian Medical Association has appealed to the Federal Government to ensure the health budget positively impacts the lives of doctors and health workers.

The association’s first Vice-President, Dr Benjamin Olowojebutu, said this during an interview on Sunday in Lagos.

Nigeria’s 2025 health budget is ₦2.48 trillion, which is 5.18 per cent of the total budget, a significant increase from the 2024 budget, which allocated ₦1.23 trillion to health.

 Mr Olowojebutu said that there were issues around accountability and budgeting for healthcare, stressing that the impact of healthcare funds had yet to reflect in infrastructure, remuneration and training.

 He said, “You say you have a federal teaching hospital to train people, however, you now have departments in your hospital that don’t have doctors. So what are you training? Why is it called a federal teaching hospital? So you create a budget for that training, but there are no doctors that are going to train. The effectiveness of our budgeting system must be looked into.’’.

 The NMA leader noted that efforts should be made to ensure the country’s doctor-to-patient ratio was aligned with the World Health Organisation standard to improve patient safety.

Mr Olowojebutu lamented that chief medical directors of hospitals were oftentimes driven by profit or internally generated revenue without much thought to the workload impact on staff.

“Let’s say 10 doctors see 1,000 patients on a Monday clinic and that number is now reduced to five doctors maybe because of retirement or resignation, but they (hospital) still want to see the same 1,000 patients. You’re going to stress the doctors. You’re going to make them make mistakes because they’re going to be tired. Their number is not adequate to see the patients properly. You can stagger the clinic. You can say some of you (patients) are coming this Monday; others will come the other Monday. But you don’t think about the patients. You don’t think about the doctors, the healthcare workers. You think only about how much money can come into the coffers of the system,” he said.

He emphasised that there were waivers for recruitment through the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to bridge the employment gaps in the health system.

He, however, complained that some hospitals don’t leverage the employment opportunity.

“Imagine the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja, casualising doctors. Putting them on locum, which means some doctors have been employed for five years in this hospital. And they have the same salary scale for those five years. No leave. No promotion. They are victimised. This is a federal hospital which has the opportunity to train resident doctors and see more patients. But you have some departments that have no doctor, have no resident doctors and they are getting this funding from the budget of the federal government. How much are they accountable? Those are the issues. The CMDs are like emperors. They are the ones that oversee the hospital but they are not answerable to anybody. All the doctors do is work. I have seen doctors such as this in Benin City die during ward rounds, because they are stressed. The system is not helping doctors grow,” he lamented.

Mr Olowojebutu underscored the need for collective action to fight against tyranny and lack of accountability in medical practice.

He also called for judicious use of healthcare budgets to improve service delivery to patients, better working conditions and welfare for healthcare workers, and health outcomes for communities.

(NAN)