Says FG must introduce strategies to retain health workforce
By Chioma Obinna
President of the Commonwealth Medical Association, CMA, Dr. Osahon Enabulele has warned that unless the Federal Government takes pragmatic actions to grow and retain the health workforce, more doctors beyond the 58 that were prevented from traveling out of the country will still leave now that COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed.
Enabulale who is also a former National President of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, in a chat, lamented the absence of responsive strategies that would currently attract healthcare workers to remain in Nigeria.
According to him, it is time for governments at all levels to employ pragmatic actions and strategies to not only grow the health workforce but retain them for better healthcare service delivery.
Urging the government to introduce some level of attraction for the healthcare workers, he observed, the disparity between what obtains in Nigeria and most African countries.
“Beyond just talking, what are the actions and systems on the ground, what strategies are on the ground to retain these health workers to prevent them from leaving?
READ ALSO: Strike:Resident doctors extend ultimatum for 3 weeks
“We are going to have many more beyond the 58 that were prevented from travelling out of the country, especially, now that the restrictions have been relaxed.
“We would not want to be having speeches upon speeches without having very responsive strategies that can have some level of attraction for the healthcare workers to remain in Nigeria. We all know what the differences are, the disparity between what obtains in Nigeria and most African countries, and compared to the developed economies.
Responding to migration of doctors, Enabulele said: “This matter is not new but what is worrisome is that rather than addressing it more responsively, we are still doing little to prevent this whole phenomenon of brain drain.
“It is going to be our loss and that of Africa because Africa today has over 25 per cent of the disease burden of the global community yet we have only about 3 per cent of the health workforce.
“Africa today spends not more than 1per cent of public health spending and public spending on health, one per cent of global public financing of the global health expenditure on health, that is not enough investment in the health system. It is not enough investment in the health workforce, not enough investment in infrastructure and other factors that can serve as attractive platforms for health workers to be retained in their countries,” he argued.
Enabulele, who is also a Chief Consultant Family Physician at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, added that, in the last 20 years, Africans have been talking about the push and pull factors without success.
The post COVID-19: Migration of more doctors imminent, CMA President warns appeared first on Vanguard News.
https://ift.tt/304mJkW by Lawal Sherifat via Vanguard News Albert Einstein Fools of Fortune
Comments
Post a Comment