Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has stated that the Federal Government is committed to addressing the dearth of human resources in the health sector, especially at the primary health care level across Nigeria.
He said that there is not a single country in the world that can boast of effective health care delivery without adequate and well distributed human resources.
He added that no matter how much of a masterpiece the architecture of a health facility is, or how sophisticated the equipment is, or even the availability of the commodities, a health care delivery system will not function optimally if there are not enough skilled workers.
Osinbajo said this at the launch of the Community-based Health Research Innovative Training and Services Programme (CRISP) on Monday in Abuja, adding that there is no better way to tackle the challenges in health care delivery in Nigeria than to close the gaps in the availability of skilled health workers in PHC facilities.
Represented by the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, the Vice President said, that:” I am aware that Nigeria makes up only 2 percent of the world population but accounts for 14 percent of the world’s maternal death burden. Similarly, our country loses 2,500 children under the age of 5 every day due to largely preventable causes, including the lack of services that skilled birth attendants could provide. It is of interest that 80 percent of these death burdens occur in the primary health care and community levels. This clearly justifies the need for urgent actions to be taken to implement CRISP to address this situation.
“I can confidently tell you that President Muhammadu Buhari and I are ever passionate about interventions that would help to improve the health and wellbeing of the Nigerian people, and I have no doubt in the capacity of Dr. Faisal and his team working in partnership with the academia and teaching hospitals will implement and get the desired result from this initiative. This initiative will not only make skilled health workers from our teaching hospitals and federal medical centers available to offer services in our primary health care centers in all states of the federation but will also be leveraged to ensure capacity transfer to, and mentorship of PHC workers as well as promotion of best practices in community health.”