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The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) is concerned over the high number of nurses leaving the country.

According to the registrar, Faruk Abubakar, 42,000 nurses left the country in the past three years.

Abubakar noted that Nigeria’s healthcare system needed health practitioners.

“If we allow every Nigerian to leave as they graduate, who is going to handle our healthcare services?” he posed.

Abubakar spoke out after protests by the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives over new certification guidelines issued by the council.

The NMCN directive stipulated that nurses seeking verification of certificates to work abroad must pay a nonrefundable application fee and have two years of experience.

He noted that the new guidelines were to protect the country’s image after several complaints about nurses who relocated abroad for work.

“Just last year, a number of nurses were found with fake documents in America and when we did a background search, about eight of them were not in our database,” he said.

(With input from local media)