Nigerians in UK narrate ordeal assessing healthcare, as doctor’s strike continues in England

As the six-day strike by junior doctors in England continues to disrupt health services, Nigerians residing in the United Kingdom have recounted their experiences and challenges accessing healthcare in the country.

According to the Guardian UK newspaper, the latest round of industrial action, from 3 January until 9 January, will be the longest in the history of the National Health Service (NHS) history as the previous longest strike held in July 2023 was five days.

The newspaper reported that the strike centres on a long-running pay dispute between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the government. The BMA has been pushing for junior doctors to get a 35 per cent pay rise in the face of soaring inflation.

The doctor’s strike according to reports has led to the cancellation of as many as 200,000 medical appointments; while previous strikes have already cancelled 1.2 million appointments.

Comments from Nigerians in the UK

A Nigerian resident in the UK, Ifeola Giwa, told PREMIUM TIMES that the ambulance and emergency services are currently slow in the UK.

“Last week, I wasn’t feeling fine as I couldn’t breathe well and I had to call the ambulance. The ambulance showed up 2 hours after I registered my emergency. I got to the emergency unit around 9:30 p.m. but I wasn’t attended to until 6.30 a.m. the following day,” Ms Giwa narrated.

Another resident in London, Annie Olaloku-Teriba, recounted how she spent over nine hours with someone who had gone to Accident and Emergency (A&E) and ended up leaving without seeing a doctor in December.

“I went to A&E with someone last month and the wait times were 7 hours for children and 9 hours for adults. In the end, we had to leave without seeing a doctor because the wait time was growing and expressed our frustration,” she told PREMIUM TIMES.

“A nurse broke down in tears and said the situation had been like that for over six months. That night, there was no chance of getting an ambulance unless you were in critical care because there were over 200 people in the queue.”

She said she knows of people who’ve waited multiple years to see a specialist.

According to Mrs Olaloku-Teriba, “Hospitals are understaffed but the government is making it harder for medical professionals to immigrate to satisfy anti-immigrant sections of their party.”

A Nigerian staffer of NHS, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on condition of anonymity, said doctors are overworked and the waiting times are always long.

“I also work in the NHS, though I don’t know what it feels like to be a patient but one thing I do know is staff are working hard and there’s never an empty bed in the hospital,” the source said.

“I work in the ward and anytime a patient gets discharged there’s another one waiting to take the bed, which means the hospital is filled up most of the time.”

Delayed appointments

In reaction to a post on X by Tolu Ogunlesi, a former special assistant on digital/new media to former President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians in the UK have shared their ordeal accessing care, with some speculating that Nigeria runs a faster health system.

In his post, Mr Ogunlesi said there are now more than 7.7 million people on the NHS waiting list and this was confirmed by multiple reports on the official NHS performance statistics.

In her comment, Clara Olowoyo with the handle @Clarayoatlast said she waited for three years for surgery.

Another X user, Capt Awesome(The 18th Duck), @mmayomi said: “It took three months for them to attend to my daughter. I was almost coming back home to see our family doctor”.

OYO MEESI, @abi4u2011 also shared that his wife has been on the waiting list for an operation since 2019 and his son for about 18 months.

“I have now gone private. The NHS is in serious crisis and no longer sustainable,” he posted.

“I have now gone private. The NHS is in serious crisis and no longer sustainable,” he posted.

However, a Nigerian medical practitioner practising in the UK, who does not want to be quoted, said, “Though the ongoing strike affects only public hospitals, private ones are extremely expensive.”

The source confirmed that the UK health system is free for entitled and legal residents, but currently overcrowded due to population explosion.

Nigerians opt for home for health care

Other X users under the post further speculated that Nigerians abroad now prefer to travel back to their home country for health care because it is “more accessible” compared to the UK.

Abdulazeez Salaudeen, @babasalah87 said he has been on the waiting list for the past eight months for surgery.

“Nigerians, appreciate your own thing, you won’t understand. I wish I could get money to come and do the surgery at home,” he said

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The Nigerian medical practitioner based in the UK also confirmed that some Nigerians are returning to the country for certain medical cases, saying it is a choice taken by individuals and based on their circumstances.

The source, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, told PREMIUM TIMES that he knows of a Nigerian who left the UK to have the In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) procedure in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, another X user, Nasir Saliu, @Nasige, also observed that most Nigerians who left the country are coming back for medical treatment, leading to a hike in the prices of medical care in Nigeria.

Abbeylaw, @abbeylaw9 said he lost a pregnant friend some months back, “I am still pained because I know with her financial capability she would get the best of health care in Nigeria UK health sector is overrated”

Brain drain in Nigeria

However, in Nigeria, the exodus of healthcare professionals, especially doctors, pharmacists, and nurses to developed countries has been on the increase.

With a doctor-patient ratio over five times worse than the WHO recommendation, Nigeria has continued to lose hundreds of doctors annually to brain drain, a large number of them to the UK. Various statistics show that over 5,000 Nigerian medical doctors have migrated to the UK between 2015 and 2022.

According to data documented by the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPC), 233 Nigerian doctors moved to the UK in 2015; the number increased to 279 in 2016; in 2017 the figure was 475, in 2018, the figure rose to 852, in 2019 it jumped to 1,347; in 2020, the figure was 833 and in 2021, it was put at 932.

The continued emigration of health practitioners has led to a shortage of skilled health workers in the country, which has negatively affected the quality of healthcare services provided to the citizens.