The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) received no funds from the N1.2 billion capital vote appropriated to it in the 2025 fiscal year, Fatimah Kyari, the Registrar of the council, has disclosed.
Kyari made this known while appearing before the Senate Committee on Health during the 2026 budget defence session held in Abuja on Friday, where she also highlighted funding shortfalls and challenges confronting the council.
She told the lawmakers that the funding gap has compounded operational difficulties for the council, even as the health sector grapples with manpower pressures and brain drain.
Beyond funding concerns, the MDCN Registrar drew attention to the challenge of housemanship placement for newly graduated doctors, revealing that about 2,000 medical doctors are unable to secure placements annually due to limited capacity under the current centralized system.
According to her, while medical schools across the country produce about 6,000 doctors every year, the centralized housemanship system can only accommodate 4,000.
“A total of about 6,000 Medical Doctors are produced annually from the various medical schools while the Centralized Housemanship System in operation has capacity for 4,000 Medical Doctors.
“As a way of accommodating the 6,000 at once yearly, there is need to include State and privately owned Hospitals in the Centralized Housemanship System,” she said.
Kyari stressed that accommodating all newly graduated doctors on a yearly basis was crucial to addressing the persistent brain drain in the health sector.
On recurrent expenditure, she disclosed that out of the N100 million appropriated for overhead costs in 2025, only N37.5 million was released.
She, however, noted that “N13.859 billion was released from the N16.8 billion earmarked for personnel costs during the same fiscal year.”
Responding, Banigo Ipalibo (Rivers West), the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, assured the council that the committee would work towards ensuring improved and adequate funding for the MDCN.
