Doctor !do you really want to come back to practice in Nigeria.?
Recently our senators urged doctors of Nigerian decent working abroad to relocate back home to practice and help improve our healthcare. As encouraging as this maybe, you may want to consider carefully before making the trip. Before your 'love for Country' pushes you back, ask what is your greatest motivation? what will make you come home and spend a week.? what will make you leave your comfort zone for the unknown and unpredictable terrain of Nigerian healthcare sector.?
As you ponder on the above, i wont bore you with the fuel scarcity currently ravaging the country, i wont bore you with the epileptic power situation, the poor state of health infrastructure in the country,or the gross ineffectiveness of the personnel that will help you with this work or the massive corruption present in the healthcare sector or poor security situation.
I will just try to compare what a doctor earns in the USA and what his counterpart earns here.
Medscape in its 2015 Physician compensation report,
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-salary-does-a-doctor-make-2015-4
stated that an average primary care doctor in the USA made $195,000 while an average specialist made $284,000. if converted by the current official exchange rate of N199 to $1,this amounts to N38,805,000 and N56,516,000 respectively. This is on a general note. breaking it down further by specialties and sub-specialties you will have the following......
Now compare this with a doctor in a private hospital that earns 80k per month that is N960,000 per annum as a general practitioner. Doctors under the federal employ earn a little bit above those with state government
Starting salary for federal government doctors is between N175k - N220k, excluding tax and other reductions. Entry level salary for state doctors varies, depending on the state. Some state pay as low as N150k, the highest one can find in states is around N240k.But those who earn the most are the senior doctors, consultants. Some few of them earn up to N800k per month depending on your experience and years of service.
Now the funny thing is that everyone earns same thing despite the specialties, so someone who spends like 6-8hrs per patient per day and someone who spends just 2hrs on a patient per day earns same salary just because they are on same grade level.
Based on just this remuneration package you may want to rethink your decision to 're-locate' back. Home is good and could be fun too,but trust me these are not fun days. I sincerely pray and hope this government does the needful to re-position our healthcare to conditions that will reduce brain drain because the rate at which young doctors are leaving the shores of Nigeria to seek greener pastures is alarming.
May God help us.
As you ponder on the above, i wont bore you with the fuel scarcity currently ravaging the country, i wont bore you with the epileptic power situation, the poor state of health infrastructure in the country,or the gross ineffectiveness of the personnel that will help you with this work or the massive corruption present in the healthcare sector or poor security situation.
I will just try to compare what a doctor earns in the USA and what his counterpart earns here.
Medscape in its 2015 Physician compensation report,
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-salary-does-a-doctor-make-2015-4
stated that an average primary care doctor in the USA made $195,000 while an average specialist made $284,000. if converted by the current official exchange rate of N199 to $1,this amounts to N38,805,000 and N56,516,000 respectively. This is on a general note. breaking it down further by specialties and sub-specialties you will have the following......
Now compare this with a doctor in a private hospital that earns 80k per month that is N960,000 per annum as a general practitioner. Doctors under the federal employ earn a little bit above those with state government
Starting salary for federal government doctors is between N175k - N220k, excluding tax and other reductions. Entry level salary for state doctors varies, depending on the state. Some state pay as low as N150k, the highest one can find in states is around N240k.But those who earn the most are the senior doctors, consultants. Some few of them earn up to N800k per month depending on your experience and years of service.
Now the funny thing is that everyone earns same thing despite the specialties, so someone who spends like 6-8hrs per patient per day and someone who spends just 2hrs on a patient per day earns same salary just because they are on same grade level.
Based on just this remuneration package you may want to rethink your decision to 're-locate' back. Home is good and could be fun too,but trust me these are not fun days. I sincerely pray and hope this government does the needful to re-position our healthcare to conditions that will reduce brain drain because the rate at which young doctors are leaving the shores of Nigeria to seek greener pastures is alarming.
May God help us.
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