According to the Medical and Dental Consultants' Association of Nigeria, 500 consultants in various medical fields have deserted government hospitals in search of better working conditions abroad.

Dr. Victor Makanjuola, the association's president, revealed this on Sunday while taking questions from the media shortly after a briefing on the decision made at the conclusion of the association's annual general meeting in Benin.

He claimed that unsolved difficulties in the administration were to blame for the nation's health woes, which resulted in a mass exodus of medical professionals to safer countries with better working circumstances.

“Over 500 consultants have quit working for government hospitals in the past two years to practice abroad. As is customary around the world, consultants oversee all of our public hospitals.

In just two years, we have lost 500 consultants, and we've discovered that the younger consultants are more prone to depart, according to Makanjuola.

He claimed that the nation needed to hold on to older consultants who are in their 50s and getting close to retirement so that they can remain and train the next generation of doctors and medical students in order to maintain the system and be able to do so.

We will lose the younger generation and the elder generation will retire around the same time, which will sadly result in a medical system without consultants, so the calamity that brain drain will bring will be doubled. The hospital's level of medical care will be impacted by this, according to the association's president.

He explained that in order to solve the issue, the government should raise the retirement age for hospital experts from 60 to 70 years old.

He went on to say that stakeholders might also take advantage of the underutilized field of medical entrepreneurship, which has the potential to reduce brain loss and boost brain growth.

The President bemoaned the inadequacy of government attempts to solve the problems in the health sector.

He urged well-meaning Nigerians to step in to prevent an imminent catastrophe, stating that the union could not guarantee industrial harmony in government hospitals if the employees' demands were not addressed in two weeks.