Kano Nurses Are Leaving: Why Salary Reform Can No Longer Wait

……Recruiting without retaining experienced nurses is not a sustainable workforce strategy. Kano must address nurses’ remuneration and build a comprehensive retention plan around it.

By Zarau Muhammad Kabir, RN, BNSc.

Walk into any emergency department, maternity unit, neonatal ward or primary healthcare centre in Kano State and you will find nurses holding the system together.

They monitor, medicate, comfort and escalate, often around the clock. Yet more of them are considering opportunities abroad, attracted by comparatively better remuneration, safer working environments and clearer career-progression pathways.

This movement of skilled professionals is commonly described as brain drain. Its consequences extend beyond individual career decisions to affect the availability, quality and continuity of healthcare.

In a state where a growing population keeps pushing demand upward, retaining experienced nurses is not merely a labour issue. It is a public-health priority.
A national crisis with local consequences
The numbers are sobering.

Haruna Mamman, president of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), said in May that more than 57,000 Nigerian nurses had left the country over five years, about 16,000 of them for the United Kingdom by December 2025 (The Punch, May 13, 2026).

These are association estimates, not figures from an independent national register. Even treated with caution, they point to a serious retention problem.

Kano is feeling the strain. In January, health authorities disclosed a shortage of about 4,000 professional health workers across the state, citing population growth and inadequate workforce numbers (The Sun, January 26, 2026).

In October, the state government recruited 2,037 health personnel, including 250 nurses and 250 midwives, and acknowledged that the migration of health professionals was worsening shortages (Radio Nigeria Kaduna, October 1, 2026).

Recruitment is necessary. But it cannot be the whole answer. A system that hires new staff while losing experienced ones is running to stand still.

Why pay matters
Nurses leave for many reasons: remuneration, career progression, workplace safety and quality of life. Pay is not the only factor, but it is among the most pressing.

Consider what the job demands. Nurses monitor patients continuously, administer medicines safely, recognise clinical deterioration early, coordinate care across teams, educate patients and steady families in their hardest moments.

Meanwhile, inflation, transport and housing costs, family obligations and the expense of professional development steadily erode their incomes. Many international healthcare employers offer comparatively better remuneration, more favourable staffing conditions, professional-development opportunities and better-equipped workplaces.

For many nurses, the choice is not hard to understand.
What is lost when experienced nurses leave
When seasoned nurses go, the work does not disappear. It falls on those who remain, deepening workload, fatigue and burnout. Mentorship thins out.

Institutional knowledge and clinical leadership leave with them, along with the capacity to train the next generation.
The stakes are highest where timing matters most. In emergency and critical care, prompt assessment, continuous monitoring and rapid intervention can shape patient outcomes. In maternity and neonatal services, stretched staffing places added pressure on those responsible for mothers and newborns. Although staff shortages do not automatically result in poor patient outcomes, they weaken the conditions necessary for safe, effective and timely healthcare delivery.

Salary reform as a retention strategy
This is why discussions and efforts concerning the review and implementation of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) in Kano State deserve urgent attention. Fair and timely remuneration is not merely an additional benefit; it is an important way to recognise healthcare professionals, improve morale and address a significant source of dissatisfaction among nurses.

Uncertainty or delays in concluding and implementing salary reforms have understandably unsettled nurses and their representatives. The state government should communicate clearly about the current status of CONHESS-related discussions and decisions, any outstanding administrative steps, and the expected timeline.

Any statement about formal approval or an agreed implementation date should be supported by an official government or relevant institutional communication.
Investing in nurses’ pay and welfare is an investment in workforce stability. Without it, Kano risks a cycle of recruitment, attrition and depletion.

Beyond salaries: a retention agenda
Pay is essential, but it is not enough. A serious retention agenda would include five steps:

Implement CONHESS promptly, with all appropriate entitlements.
Improve working conditions through adequate staffing, functional equipment, safer workplaces and appropriate staff-welfare arrangements.

Expand opportunities for growth, including postgraduate education, specialist training, leadership development and career progression, so that advancing professionally does not require leaving the country.

Build a reliable nursing workforce database tracking recruitment, retirement, resignation, migration and retention, to give workforce planning a sound evidence base.

Sustain engagement with NANNM, so that nurses and their representatives help shape decisions on pay, staffing, development and retention.

A call for decisive action
Responsibility is shared among government, professional associations, health institutions and other stakeholders. But leadership must come from government, which sets the policies, funding and institutional conditions that workforce stability requires.

The goal is not to stop nurses from pursuing opportunities elsewhere. It is to make building a career in Kano a professionally rewarding and economically sustainable choice.

Recruitment without retention is an incomplete strategy. Delayed salary reform weakens its intended impact on nurses’ morale, motivation and retention. And a health system that neglects its nurses ultimately undermines itself.
Nurses deserve fair pay, professional recognition and dignified working conditions. Patients deserve accessible, quality care. Kano deserves a health workforce that is supported, respected and retained.

The future of healthcare in Kano cannot be secured by recruiting nurses alone. It must begin by valuing the nurses who remain.
Zarau Muhammad Kabir, RN, BNSc, is a registered nurse and Secretary-General of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Unit Branch, Sir Muhammadu Sanusi Specialist Hospital, Kano State.