NDHII Saved 10,000 Nigerian Lives, Trained 2,000 Health Workers — Minister

The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, has disclosed that the National Diaspora Health Impact Initiative (NDHII) has saved 10,000 Nigerian lives and trained 2,000 frontline health workers across the country's six geopolitical zones.

He made the disclosure at the National Diaspora Merit Award held on Saturday in Abuja, themed "Harnessing Global Diaspora Medical Expertise to Strengthen Local Health Systems for National Development."

The event brought together diaspora-based Nigerian medical professionals and government officials to recognise contributions made toward strengthening the country's healthcare delivery system, particularly in underserved states.

Dr Salako said UK-based obstetricians, paediatricians and midwives, drawn from the Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain (MANSAG) and the Nigerian Nurses Charitable Association UK (NNCA-UK), have been working in Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto States.

According to him, the groups invested several millions of naira in personnel and material resources to train more than a thousand frontline healthcare workers in the Safer Births Bundle of Care (SBBC), bringing the same evidence-based approach credited with saving lives in British labour wards to nurses and midwives serving high-burden communities in the North-West.

In Enugu, Imo and Abia States, he said, doctors from the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) invested several thousand US dollars to run specialist medical missions. These missions delivered 4,000 medical consultations and over 500 surgeries, while also training 350 health workers and 150 community responders in the South-East region.

The minister said the initiative reflects a growing trend of Nigerian medical professionals abroad channelling their expertise and resources back home, rather than limiting their contributions to remittances alone. He described the collaboration as a model for how diaspora professionals can directly strengthen local health systems without requiring permanent relocation.

Dr Salako reaffirmed the Federal Government's commitment to continue working with diaspora health professionals, pledging to simplify licensing and locum arrangements for diaspora clinicians, and to ease customs and visa processes that have historically slowed their engagement. He added that government would also invest in hospital infrastructure, diagnostic centres and pharmaceutical industries as part of a broader healthcare investment drive on Nigerian soil.

He noted that the government was committed to removing practical bottlenecks around registration, licensing and logistics that have historically made it difficult for diaspora professionals to give back to the country's health sector.

The minister highlighted that diaspora health professionals have consulted, treated, operated on, trained and mentored health workers, as well as offered free skills transfer, in teaching and general hospitals spanning Lagos, Edo, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Borno, Imo, Abia, Enugu, Nasarawa, Gombe and the Federal Capital Territory.

The National Diaspora Merit Award has increasingly become a platform for the Federal Government to publicly acknowledge the scale of unpaid and philanthropic medical support flowing into Nigeria's health system from abroad, at a time when the country continues to grapple with a shortage of frontline health workers due to sustained emigration of medical personnel, commonly referred to as the "japa" trend.

Officials say initiatives like NDHII are intended to help bridge that gap by turning outward migration into a two-way exchange of skills, resources and training, rather than a pure loss to the health system.