Once again, Nigeria has been plunged into avoidable chaos as health workers across the country embark on yet another indefinite nationwide strike. The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and the Assembly of Health Care Professional Associations (AHPA) withdrew services effective November 15, citing the Federal Government’s persistent failure to implement the adjusted Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) and address long-standing welfare and systemic problems confronting the sector.
This strike is one too many. Once again, the blame lies squarely at the doorstep of the Federal Government, whose decades-long neglect of health workers has forced them to down tools repeatedly. It must be pointed out that the issue is not merely about salaries. It is about dignity, safety and the survival of a health system in free fall. Despite repeated warnings, memoranda of understanding and even suspended strikes, the government continues to treat its indispensable health workforce with indifference, even contempt.
Unfortunately, the crisis is not limited to industrial action. Nigeria’s health sector is hemorrhaging skilled professionals at an alarming rate. Between 2023 and 2024, over 43,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical laboratory scientists migrated abroad, representing a staggering 200 per cent increase in health worker emigration within just two years. In 2024 alone, 4,193 doctors and dentists left the country, with approximately 66 per cent migrating to the United Kingdom, followed by Canada, the United States, Australia, the UAE, Ireland, the Maldives, Botswana, India and Saudi Arabia. Nurses and midwives, numbering over 23,000, are fleeing faster, driven by better pay, working conditions and career prospects abroad.
Even as the Federal Government claims to have recruited over 37,000 health workers since 2023, these additions are dwarfed by the rate of attrition. Furthermore, regulatory gaps mean only half of registered health workers are licensed to practise, and distribution is heavily skewed, with 75 per cent concentrated in urban areas serving just 45 per cent of the population. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s doctor-to-population ratio is 1:5,000, starkly below the WHO recommendation of 1:600, and the nurse-to-population ratio is 1:2,000, compared with the recommended 1:300. The result is a health system on the brink, particularly in underserved rural communities.
Nigeria’s plight contrasts sharply with the countries attracting its health personnel. The UK, Canada, the US and Australia provide safer working conditions, competitive remuneration, and professional growth—amenities Nigerian workers have been denied for decades. Where Nigerian health workers struggle to implement life-saving procedures with inadequate equipment, foreign systems ensure the workforce is well-supported, monitored and fairly compensated. This gap not only highlights Nigeria’s failure to meet basic obligations but also underscores the human cost of neglect—a health system where patients are left waiting, understaffed hospitals operate under duress and preventable deaths are inevitable.
No doubt, the ongoing strike is entirely preventable. The government’s approach—allowing promises to languish, waiting for strikes to force action—is a culture that must end. Health workers have consistently demonstrated professionalism, patriotism and restraint. Yet, these virtues are repeatedly taken for granted. And ordinary Nigerians are paying the price: a crumbling health system, overstretched remaining staff and increasingly limited access to care.
Therefore, we appeal to the Federal Government to immediately implement the long-overdue CONHESS adjustment; address welfare, equipment, and systemic lapses; and adopt proactive policies to retain health workers rather than reactively waiting for industrial action. Failure to act will not only deepen the health workforce crisis but also cement Nigeria’s position at the bottom of global healthcare indices.
A nation that fails to care for its caregivers has already failed itself. Nigeria can no longer afford to treat strikes as routine events or to allow its brightest minds to seek greener pastures abroad. So, the government must act now.