By Kazeem Akolawole
The Federal Government of Nigeria has said it has completed establishing National health workforce registries in 25 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in order to continuously generate and maintain comprehensive data on Nigeria health workforce.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, in his speech at a press briefing to commemorate the 75th World Health Day and World Health Workers week in Abuja, disclosed that the federal government is responding to issues of health workers migration by putting in place policy measures that ensure more health workers are trained, recruited, retained, and better remunerated.
He said: “In order to continuously generate and maintain comprehensive data on Nigeria health workforce, the Ministry embarked on the establishment of National Health Workforce Registry which is a web-based information system that links healthcare workers to their respective health facilities.
“The registry will seamlessly help to disaggregate Health Care Workers’ information according to cadre, gender, location, age, specialty et cetera”.
Ehanire also explained the Ministry is also taking steps to elevate Human Resources for Health branch to a programmer to better deal with the many emerging Human Resources for Health issues in Nigeria.
“A Human Resources for Health conference is being planned to discuss as many of these issues as possible and to find ways to mitigate the challenges.
“This year’s World Health Workers’ week is significant as it marks the 75th anniversary when countries of the world came together and founded the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote health keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone everywhere can attain the highest level of health and well-being,” he added.
The World Health Organization(WHO) Country Representative, Dr. Walter Kazadi Molumbo, while recounting Organization’s achievements, said WHO Nigeria in collaboration with the government have been achieving notable strides in keeping the people safe and serving vulnerable populations, in such areas as combatting infectious disease, HIV treatment, reducing maternal mortality, increase in life expectancy, and supporting disease eradication.
“Similarly, WHO has been supporting the government across all levels to build the capacity of health workers to improve health resources and services provided in the country.
“Furthermore, WHO has continued to support the protracted humanitarian crisis in the northeast region of Nigeria since 2016,” he said.
On Universal Health Coverage (UHC), Molumbo explained that at the heart of #health for all is the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, where people can have access to affordable, equitable, good quality and sustainable health care.
“In the WHO African Region, around 25% of health expenditure comes out of people’s pockets and as a result, hundreds of millions of people in the African region have been pushed further below the poverty line due to spending on health”.
Molumbo therefore said, National health strategies should position primary health care as the entry point into a health system which not only treats ill health but also prevents illness and promotes good health”.
