Health Workers in Nigeria Are Getting Long Overdue Reforms

In July 2026, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) threatened industrial action and an indefinite strike if the persistent issues of welfare and remuneration were not properly addressed. Concerns were raised over the poor treatment doctors received while on call, including the denial of emails by the hospital management. The demands of the association are not unfamiliar to the government, yet these problems have been left to fester over the years. NARD issued an ultimatum that gave the government until August 10 to start making changes, else a nationwide strike would begin. Upon engagement with Femi Gbajiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, NARD explained that its demands were receiving attention and improvement was on the way. 

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has announced two newly developed policies catering to prevalent welfare issues within the healthcare sector. These policies have been designed to manage long working hours that often leave practitioners feeling debilitated and burnt out. The policies will ensure that health workers get periodic rest intervals, and work hours will be regulated. Following this, The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) proposed that a maximum of 48 hours per week be enforced, limiting long consecutive call hours. Where exceptions to this limit arise, the association has asked that the practitioners be adequately compensated. The guidelines have been set in place to protect the health and wellness of local health practitioners. 

The new policy is a remarkable testament to the rigour of Dr. Mohammad Suleiman’s tenure as President of NARD. Since his inauguration in September 2025, Suleiman has made it clear that he would not condone the unsafe conditions that doctors across the country are forced to work under. In October 2025, he explained that sometimes, doctors are forced to manage 22-25 days of call duty in a month. With the doctors’ mental health and physical well-being at stake, even  patient  safety is not guaranteed. Although this is a step in the right direction for the public health system, as a standalone reform, it rings incomplete.

Health professionals in Nigeria are overworked because there is so much to do, and so few people to do it. Dr. Suleiman recognized that the long hours and elimination of leaves are directly linked to the shortage of practitioners in the country. In a recent report by the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (AERE), Chairman Dele Oye remarked that Nigeria’s current doctor-people ratio is 2.9:10,000 owing to the alarming rates of medical brain drain in the past five years. This is well below the minimum requirement as issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Coupled with this brain drain, is the fast dawning reality that many of the current health professionals are reaching retirement age, a signal of impending scarcity. The doctors who are left behind are forced to bear the brunt of a failing system as regular leaves are denied and call times become unbearable. In July 2026, Dr. Wisdom Enakirerhi died while serving his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) tenure. He had been denied a sick leave with the excuse of a shortage of workers in the medical outfit. His condition worsened over this time, ultimately leading to his demise. This is just one of several instances where the wellbeing of health practitioners is ignored until it reaches a fatal point. 

Again, as policies are effected for the regulation of working hours, the government must not forget the poor pay of health workers. The current erosion of healthcare professionals that the country faces ties back to the low incentives and delayed payments that leave personnel feeling frustrated and unmotivated. November, 2025 saw the start of a nationwide public health strike that would last eighty-four days over the delayed implementation of the increase in salaries for the workers. As at April, NARD was still demanding the early disbursement of the Medical Residency Training Fund (MTRF) and the implementation of the revised professional allowance. The Nigerian government cannot continue to shut its eyes to the systemic maltreatment of health practitioners, and the ripple effects that this has on the country. 

The new healthcare policies are a glimpse of the possibilities available to health practitioners in Nigeria. More reforms like these that transform the system and address the complaints of professionals will in turn attract young health workers. Dr. Suleiman insists that doctors and other health practitioners are not slaves, so they must not be treated as such. If health workers in Nigeria are well-rested, well-compensated and provided with sufficient infrastructure, they will be able to achieve far better outcomes than they currently do. The welfare and remuneration of Nigerian health workers is tied to the quality of health service in the nation.