Nigeria Healthcare Gap: 11 Million Underserved Due to Shortage of Medical Professionals

We also identified the reasons ... healthcare needs cannot access the necessary and often lifesaving healthcare. Approximately 11 million Nigerians have unmet healthcare needs for various reasons....

Nigeria's aging population is expanding rapidly. Older adults face intersecting challenges of poverty, chronic disease burden, and inadequate access to healthcare. With limited formal income support and minimal health insurance coverage, most ...

However, despite their proximity to the grassroots, they are not adequately equipped with the resources and personnel necessary to provide comprehensive healthcare services. This has resulted in the spread of preventable diseases and increased mortality rates, particularly among women and children.

However, dissatisfaction with the NHIS by service users, inconsistent remuneration to healthcare providers and other challenges would necessitate the development of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) act in 202234. Despite the lofty ambitions of the NHP, the NHFP and the ensuing interventions, Nigeria remains far from attaining defined targets. Uzochukwu and colleagues26 extensively discussed unmet needs with health financing. They showed an enormous gap in financing, with the federal government going back on its initial 15% pledge to a meager 6% allocation for health expenditure27.

The MOU was negotiated in connection with reforms the Nigerian government has made to prioritize protecting Christian populations from violence and includes significant dedicated funding to support Christian health care facilities with a focus on expanding access to integrated HIV, TB, malaria, and maternal and child health services.

Nigeria responded with a $200 million health funding package within six weeks that included HIV. The ⁠U.S. government also issued a waiver for "life-saving" aid in February 2025, including antiretrovirals.

According to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, the country had only 74,543 registered doctors for a population of about 218 million in 2022 – a doctor–patient ratio of 1:3,500, which falls alarmingly short of the World Health ...

Survey shows looming brain drain in Nigeria's health sector in the rising trend of emigration of healthcare personnel – physicians, pharmacists, nurses, laboratory scientists, physiotherapists and many others have difficulty getting into paid employment. Many fresh doctors, out of medical schools, and managed to get housemanship positions, the situation occurs every year.

There is an alarming shortage of skilled health personnel in the region. The violence has left more than 40 per cent of health facilities either destroyed or badly damaged, and many doctors and nurses were forced to flee.