Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, has said that Lagos State has just about 7000 across the over 4000 public and private healthcare facilities although the state requires 40,000 doctors.
Abayomi stated this on Tuesday at the ongoing 2026 ministerial press briefing to mark the third year of the second term of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration.
The commissioner also said the state requires an additional 40,000 nurses to bridge manpower gaps in the health sector
“Nigeria currently has about 40,000
doctors at a ratio of one doctor to 5,000 people. The country needs about
300,000 additional doctors, while Lagos requires 40,000 doctors. Currently,
Lagos has 7,000. The gap for Lagos is over 30,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses,”
the commissioner said.
The Commissioner nonetheless stated that Lagos has increasingly become an
attractive destination for healthcare professionals due to ongoing reforms and
investments in the sector.
He also said that the state is working at exploring the opportunities medical
tourism provide with its medical park project.
“We are making sure that the health
sector is robust enough to manage everything that comes its way,” he said.
He projected that Lagos could emerge as a leading medical tourism destination
in Africa by 2052, driven by ongoing reforms, mandatory health insurance and
the state’s long-term Universal Health Coverage agenda.
Abayomi added that the administration was repositioning the health sector to
effectively respond to emerging challenges such as pandemics, flooding, urban
population growth and other public health emergencies.
He said that Lagos State currently
operates 34 secondary and tertiary public health facilities, 325 Primary
Healthcare Centres, about 3,500 private health facilities, as well as over
10,000 community pharmacies and Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors within
the informal healthcare sector.
He added that Lagos is presently ranked among the leading African cities in
healthcare delivery and is targeting a place among the continent’s top three
healthcare destinations.
According to him, cities currently ahead of Lagos include Cape Town, Pretoria,
Nairobi, Johannesburg, Durban, Algiers, Tunis, Cairo and Casablanca.
Highlighting the pressure on existing
medical personnel, the commissioner stated that doctors in Lagos were
overstretched due to the huge population burden.
“For every doctor we have in Lagos, they are doing the job of ten,” he said.
To address the persistent brain drain in the health sector, Abayomi disclosed
that the state government had commenced a series of healthcare financing
reforms aimed at improving the welfare, remuneration and living conditions of
healthcare workers, while also creating opportunities for Nigerian doctors in
the diaspora to return home.
He revealed that accommodation facilities for medical personnel were being
expanded across public hospitals in the state.
According to him, a 72-room
accommodation complex for house officers has been completed at the Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital, while construction and renovation works are
ongoing at other major health institutions.
“We recently completed an accommodation complex for 72 house officers at
LASUTH, while work at Odan is ongoing. Staff quarters at Gbagada, Ojo and
LASUTH are nearing completion. Going forward, all new medical facilities will
have staff quarters in close proximity,” he stated.
Abayomi further disclosed that LASUTH currently has about 120 medical
specialists, while general hospitals across the state collectively have about
250 specialists.
He stressed that infrastructure
development remained central to the administration’s healthcare agenda, adding
that the government had developed a comprehensive medical blueprint focused on
sustainable and renewable healthcare facility designs.
The commissioner maintained that the reforms being implemented by the Sanwo-Olu
administration were aimed at building a resilient healthcare system capable
of meeting the demands of Lagos’ rapidly growing population while positioning
the state as a healthcare hub for West Africa.
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