The survey behind it is the real story. A Ministerial Committee on Work Hour Regulation, established in January 2026, surveyed 6,350 health workers across all six geopolitical zones. The findings: 39% routinely worked 60 to 72 hours a week, 11% frequently went over 24 hours without sleep (27% did so occasionally), 86% received neither overtime pay nor documented time off, 98% reported exhaustion, and 76% reported emotional detachment, a marker of burnout. These aren’t outlier cases. This was the norm the policy is now trying to correct.
The framework covers more than resident doctors, it applies to nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, allied professionals, and administrators, whether permanent, temporary, contract, or locum. Routine shifts are capped at 12 hours except in emergencies, call duties limited to two per week and one weekend call per month, with mandatory 12-hour rest between shifts and 24-hour rest after call duty. A companion measure caps temporary and locum doctor contracts at six months. Internationally, Nigeria’s 48-hour limit matches the EU’s Working Time Directive standard, and is notably more protective than the US, which permits an 80-hour average over four weeks.
Physician Dr. Ezeugwu Chukwudi’s reaction to the policy captured the uncomfortable truth underneath the numbers: for decades, staffing gaps were filled by doctors simply working longer, a pattern he called not a functioning system but “a system being subsidized by physician exhaustion.” His pointed question for hospital leaders now raising implementation concerns: if a system collapses the moment doctors stop overworking, doctors were never the system, they were the subsidy keeping it alive.
What You Can Do
• If you’re a health worker, know the framework applies to you regardless of employment status, permanent, contract, or locum, not just resident doctors.
• Document non-compliance where you see it. NARD has specifically urged members to record violations and route them through centre leadership.
• Watch for the National Council on Health’s formal ratification, and for the second companion document on casualisation and locum appointments NARD says is still coming.
The Health Factor Africa
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