Physician emigration from Nigeria and the associated factors: the implications to safeguarding the Nigeria health system

BACKGROUND: Adequate Human Resources for Health is indispensable to achieving Universal Health Coverage and physicians play a leading role. Nigeria with low physician–population ratio, is experiencing massive exodus of physicians. This study investigated emigration intention of physicians, the factors influencing it and discussed the implications to guide policy formulation and reforms, curtail the trend and safeguard the country’s health system. METHODS: Through cross-sectional survey, 913 physicians from 37 States were interviewed with semi-structured questionnaire using Google form shared via WhatsApp and Telegram forums of Nigeria Medical Association. Data were analysed with IBM-SPSS version-25 and charts were created with Microsoft-Excel. Chi-square and multiple regression tests were done with p-value set at 0.05. RESULTS: The mean age of respondents is 37.6 ± 7.9 years; majority of them are males (63.2%), married (75.5%) with postgraduate qualifications (54.1%) and working in public health facilities (85.4%). Whereas 13% and 19.3% are, respectively, satisfied with their work and willing to continue practice in Nigeria, 43.9% want to emigrate and 36.8% are undecided about future location of their practice. The commonest reasons for emigration are poor remuneration (91.3%), rising insecurity (79.8%) and inadequate diagnostic facilities (61.8%). Physicians working in public health facilities are 2.5 times less satisfied than their counterparts in non-public sector (AOR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.3–0.8). Physicians in their thirties, forties and fifties are 3.5 (95% CI = 1.5–8.0), 5.5 (95% CI = 2.1–14.5) and 13.8 (95% CI = 3.9–49.3) times, respectively, more willing to retain practice in Nigeria than those younger and those satisfied with their work are 4.7 (AOR = 4.7, 95% CI = 2.9–7.4) times more willing to practice in Nigeria than those not satisfied. CONCLUSION: Majority of Nigerian physicians want to emigrate for professional practice and top among the push factors are poor remuneration, rising insecurity and inadequate diagnostic facilities. The observed trend portends danger to the country’s health system due to the foreseeable negative consequences of physician deficit to the system. We recommend upward review of physician remuneration, a root cause analysis of insecurity to determine workable preventive measures and increased funding of the health sector to improve the diagnostic infrastructure, retain physicians and save the health system from imminent collapse. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12960-022-00788-z.