Hospitals across Nigeria are increasingly hiring doctors as temporary or “locum” staff—without benefits, job security, or adequate pay—leaving many medical professionals trapped under exploitative conditions .
Dr. Chukwuemeka Njoku, for instance, spends long hours at a government hospital, performing the same duties as permanent staff, yet often goes unpaid for months. “I kept showing up because I didn’t want to risk losing the job… by the end of the second month without pay, I was borrowing to survive,” he confided .
Similarly, Dr. Musa Abdullahi, stationed in a northern teaching hospital, survives on a contract salary of ₦115,000—nearly half of which goes on transport alone. He shares, “I used to think medical school was hard… I didn’t know the real suffering would start after I became a doctor” .
Originally designed as short-term stopgaps—lasting no more than three months—these locum roles have been abused, becoming semi-permanent arrangements lasting years. Doctors employed under them miss out on pensions, health insurance, career progression, hazard allowances, and full salaries .
Professional bodies like the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) describe this system as a modern form of labour casualisation. They argue it worsens Nigeria’s medical brain drain, with over 16,000 doctors emigrating in the past five to seven years, leaving a critically low doctor-to-patient ratio of 3.9 per 10,000—far below WHO standards .
Advocates are calling for urgent reforms: abolishing prolonged locum arrangements, enforcing one-to-one staff replacement policies, and fast‑tracking permanent recruitment in vital healthcare sectors. NMA leaders demand that all government-employed doctors be permanently appointed after a brief probation, with temporary contracts capped at one year .
