BY NGOZI OBOH
September 9, 2011 01:01PM
Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation that works to save children’s lives and fight for their rights, has called on the federal government to step up its investment on ensuring that adequate manpower is provided in the health sector.
Hadiza Aminu, the campaign coordinator for Save the Children in Nigeria, told journalists on Wednesday in Abuja that it might be impossible to achieve some portions of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) if there are inadequate health workers to implement policies of government.
“The issue of health workers came about when we realised that no matter what we do to achieve MDGs 4 and 5, reduction of maternal and child mortality will be vain because the people at the core to provide these services are health workers especially frontline ones at the rural communities,” she said.
According to Ms Amina, “Nigeria has a lopsided distribution of health workers. There are a few of them in rural areas but in some urban facilities they do not have so much to do. There is need for even distribution so that all citizens will have equal rights to having health workers. That will be a major achievement for Nigeria.”
Nigeria at the bottom
Saying there is a need to train and retrain because new innovations keep coming up everyday, she said government should prioritise the recruitment, training, deployment retention of more health workers within the reach of every woman and every child. Most of them apart from not having the proper skill do not have the facilities to give adequate health care to people at the community level.
Susan Grant, the country director of Save the Children in Nigeria, acknowledged the current efforts of government, especially with the midwives service scheme, but noted that “Nigeria must be creative to get more health workers into poor and rural communities where there are acute shortages of trained health workers. Failing to invest in health workers will cost lives.”
The group said it was disturbed that despite its massive oil wealth, Nigeria ranks bottom in the global health workers index.
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