Lara Adejoro
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has been interfacing with the Ministry of Finance on reviewing pending arrears for healthcare workers in the country.
Alausa said this on Thursday, at the National Dialogue on Human Resources for Health with the theme, “Unlocking financing opportunities for human resources for health in Nigeria” in Abuja.
Alausa noted that the government is aware of the challenges of the health workforce as it is not unconnected with the trend of brain drain with the resultant lack of human resources for health, and unemployment, among others.
Alausa, who was represented by the Chief Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, Dr Saad Ahmed stated, “As we all know, a giant stride taken by the government is the direct ceding of manpower issue to the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare with the mandate of granting a waiver for recruitment. This is a recognition of the need to circumvent bureaucracy and a short, quick replacement and filling of the gaps as well as recruitment based on the need.
“The joint committee on waiver has granted over 15 waivers to federal tertiary hospitals who have met the criteria and complied with the information templates. The committee is relentless and their exercise is currently ongoing.
“There is a deliberate effort to double admission into medical and health sciences programmes by institutions that have the capacity and this will be closely regulated by the relevant regulatory bodies. This will lead to an increase in the production of health workforce.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria has launched a policy on health workforce migration whose implementation is being worked on at the moment. There has been interval upward review of CONMESS, CONHESS salaries scale for health workers, and the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has been interfacing with the Ministry of Finance on pending areas for this review and this we all know is motivational.”
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Health, Dr Salma Anas, noted that the National Policy on Health Workforce Migration is a game-changer in addressing the challenges facing Nigeria’s health human resources.
Anas, represented by Dr Aminu Yakubu said, “It’s a game changer, to ensure not only that you get adequate financing for human resources for health in Nigeria, but to ensure that there is the adequate incentive to maintain the talents that are in country and also to attract back the talents that have gone elsewhere to gain more knowledge and more experience so that they can also come back to continue supporting health development in Nigeria.”
The United States Agency for International Development representative, Dr Veronica Momoh stressed the importance of investing in Nigeria’s health workforce.
“There can be no health system without a health workforce. Health workers are central to attaining, sustaining, and accelerating progress on universal health coverage,” Momoh stated.
She further noted that the ongoing Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, described as the country’s most ambitious health reform in recent years, hinges on empowering and enabling health workers to deliver quality care.
“For every dollar invested in health and creating decent employment for health workers, the potential return is about nine dollars. Now that is called a smart investment,” she explained, urging Nigeria’s ministries of finance, budget, and economic planning to recognize the significant returns on such investments.
She reaffirmed USAID’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s efforts to strengthen its health workforce.
The Commissioner for Health and Human Services in Ekiti State and Chair of the Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum, Dr Oyebanji Filani, said financing is key to human resources for health.
Filani said, “We realise that governments, both national and subnational, have done a good number of states have done really good work in making sure that we can move in the right direction. But of course, there’s always more that needs to be done to ensure that we get to that level.
“And part of what needs to be done exists within the health sector, but a lot of it is really the collaboration between the Ministries of Health, the Civil Service Commission, and their counterparts in finance to ensure that we all agree on what is required to adequately finance the health sector and ensure that we’re able to retain and attract the best talent in the sector.”
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