The Federal Government has challenged Nigerian doctors to confront professional misconduct within their ranks, warning that absenteeism, diversion of public patients, informal payments and other unethical practices are eroding public trust in the healthcare system.
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, gave the charge yesterday at the opening ceremony of the National Executive Council, NEC, meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, in Abuja.
Salako, who spoke on the theme, "Transforming Healthcare Practice in Nigeria: Building Trust, Accountability and Collaborative Excellence," said government could increase funding and invest heavily in the health sector, but such investments would have limited impact if patients continued to encounter unethical practices at health facilities.
He said: "Trust is a two-way covenant. The Nigerian patient does not experience our budget lines; she experiences the doctor in front of her."
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
According to him, patients judge the health system by whether the doctor they travelled to see was available, whether they were asked for unauthorised payments, whether referrals were made in their interest and whether they were treated with dignity.
"Every naira we invest in the health sector can become discounted by those encounters if the highest sense of duty is not exhibited," he warned.
The Minister therefore urged the NMA to treat professional conduct as a strategic asset rather than an issue to be shielded from public scrutiny.
Salako specifically called for stronger action against absenteeism, diversion of public patients to private facilities, informal payments and the silence that protects colleagues whose actions may have harmed patients.
He said accountability in clinical practice should include functional clinical governance in hospitals, honest mortality and morbidity reviews, accurate reporting of maternal and perinatal deaths, monitoring of waiting times and consultant availability, and disciplinary processes that are concluded.
"Government has a responsibility to always protect the health of the public and will never sacrifice this duty on the altar of professional solidarity," he stated.
Salako also used the occasion to highlight reforms and investments by the Federal Government, saying the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was seeking to rebuild confidence in the health system through measurable performance.
He said implementation of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative Compact had reached 84 per cent based on an independent assessment at the 2025 Joint Annual Review, with 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory completing their Joint Annual Reviews and Performance Dialogues.
He said health's share of the national budget had risen to 5.2 per cent, while the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, BHCPF, increased from N131.5 billion in 2024 to N299 billion in 2026.
According to him, more than N339 billion had been disbursed under the Fund over the past 12 years, with N235 billion released within the last three years and another N32.8 billion approved for states in June 2026.
He said more than 8,000 primary healthcare centres were now receiving direct facility financing, while nearly 4,000 PHCs had been upgraded.
The Minister added that monthly patient visits to Fund-supported facilities rose from about 10 million in early 2024 to 45 million by mid-2025.
On maternal and newborn health, he said the Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative recorded a 17 per cent reduction in maternal deaths and a 12 per cent decline in newborn deaths across 172 high-burden local government areas.
He disclosed that more than 48,000 women had received free emergency obstetric care, over 4,000 free caesarean sections had been performed in NHIA-empanelled facilities, while more than 4,700 women had received free vesico-vaginal fistula repairs across 207 facilities.
Salako also said health insurance coverage had increased from about 16 million Nigerians in 2023 to more than 22 million.
Addressing the health workforce challenge, the Minister said more than 37,000 workers had been recruited into federal tertiary hospitals since 2024, with about 75 per cent of the recruits in the clinical cadre.
He said special allowances for health workers, including doctors, had been increased, while incentives such as the Medical Residency Training Fund were being implemented.
According to him, annual medical school admission quotas had also been doubled from about 5,000 to 10,000, while N110 billion had been committed through TETFund to rehabilitate 18 medical, dental, pharmacy and nursing training institutions.
He said the National Policy on Health Workforce Migration had been adopted to manage health worker migration, while the Nigerian in Diaspora Health Impact Initiative was launched to create structured opportunities for Nigerian health professionals abroad to contribute to the country's health system.
Salako said the Federal Government had also continued engagements with doctors, citing its August 4 meeting with the leadership of the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, on welfare and other issues.
He assured the medical profession that government remained committed to dialogue, saying he had not come merely to announce commitments but to be held accountable for them.
The Minister described quackery as a serious threat to public health and called on doctors to play a leading role in identifying and exposing unlicensed practitioners.
"Quackery is not a nuisance; it is homicide by instalment," he said.
He disclosed that NAFDAC had screened more than 7,000 shops and removed 87 truckloads of falsified, banned and expired medical products, valued at about N1 trillion, from open drug markets in Aba, Onitsha and Lagos.
He urged the NMA to establish a standing joint anti-quackery mechanism with the Ministry, MDCN, NAFDAC and security agencies, with state branches serving as a surveillance layer.
"The quack in the neighbourhood is usually known to the doctors in that neighbourhood. The unlicensed clinic often has a licensed name over its door," Salako said.
The Minister further disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare was looking into recent social media reports alleging the operation of an organ-harvesting syndicate in parts of the Federal Capital Territory.
He said the ministry's National Tertiary Health Institutions Standard Committee had developed national standards and guidelines for organ and tissue transplantation.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The guidelines, he explained, require informed consent from donors and recipients, facility certification and prohibit commercialisation.
Salako said relevant agencies of the ministry had been directed to support the police in investigating the allegations.
On task-shifting and task-sharing, the Minister said the policy was necessary given the size of Nigeria's health system, with 774 local government areas and more than 43,000 health facilities.
He, however, warned that task optimisation must not become a substitute for appropriate professional care.
"Role optimisation is not role substitution," he said, adding that it must be protocol-driven, competency-based, supervised by a physician-led clinical team, formally regulated and restricted to clearly defined scopes of practice.
He urged the NMA to resolve scope-of-practice disagreements through institutional and regulatory mechanisms rather than through the media or service withdrawal that could leave patients as "bargaining chips."
Salako said government, on its part, would convene engagements among professional groups to address areas of disagreement.
He also called on the NMA to strengthen internal discipline, make industrial action a genuine last resort, ensure emergency services were not withdrawn during disputes, lead the fight against quackery and promote inter-professional respect.
He said the ultimate measure of healthcare reform should be whether Nigerians who enter health facilities are treated with dignity, receive the care they need without being impoverished and leave healthier than when they arrived.
