Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has disclosed that the state is facing a shortage of about 40,000 doctors and another 40,000 nurses, warning that existing budgetary allocations remain inadequate to meet the healthcare needs of the rapidly growing population.
The governor made the disclosure on Thursday while speaking at the second edition of the Eko Health Convention held at the Oriental Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Sanwo-Olu said the state would require at least an additional ₦100 billion beyond current budgetary provisions to adequately fund the healthcare sector.
According to him, Lagos currently has only about 7,000 doctors, a figure that falls significantly short of the workforce needed to serve residents effectively.
“Lagos needs about 40,000 doctors to serve this population properly. We have about 7,000. We need roughly 40,000 more nurses. Every doctor in Lagos today is, in effect, doing the work of 10,” he said.
Highlighting the financial burden facing the sector, the governor said declining international support for disease control programmes had further widened the funding gap.
“The second gap is money. There is a shortfall of at least ₦100 billion between what our health budget provides and what this system genuinely requires. Donor financing, which supported much of our disease control for two decades, is contracting sharply and will not return in its old form,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu explained that the state government had intensified efforts to strengthen the healthcare workforce through fresh recruitment exercises, improved welfare packages and plans to establish a specialised university dedicated to medicine and health sciences.
“We have recruited aggressively, and last month opened clinical recruitment across all twenty-nine of our secondary facilities. We have built accommodation for health workers.
We are improving conditions to slow the departures and, increasingly, to attract colleagues back,” he stated.
The governor also revealed that more than 1.5 million Lagos residents had enrolled in the state’s health insurance scheme, Ilera Eko.
According to him, official figures showed that 1,502,994 people had been enrolled in the scheme by the end of May, with women accounting for more than half of the beneficiaries.
He said increasing utilisation rates indicated that more residents were receiving medical care through the programme.
Sanwo-Olu further disclosed that the Lagos State Health Management Agency’s Assistance in Distress programme had saved 18 lives since it became operational in March.
He added that the state government was embracing technological innovations through the Lagos Smart Health Information Platform, which is expected to improve access to medical records, strengthen disease surveillance and support better healthcare planning.
The governor reiterated his administration’s commitment to building sustainable institutions capable of strengthening healthcare delivery beyond the lifespan of the present administration.
“We have kept our promises. Now we are building the systems that will keep them long after us,” he said.