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From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwang, has been commended for increased funding and recruitment of staff in the health sector to improve primary healthcare service delivery in the state.
Speaking at the Global Fund Grant Cycle 7 COVID 19 Response Mechanism Project (GF7 C19RM) Media Round Table Meeting in Jos, the Plateau State capital, stakeholders in the health sector noted that the government intervention had greatly halted the menace of diseases like Tuberculosis, Leprosy and HIV and AIDS, among others.
The Programme Officer of the project, Peter Ezekiel said the government had intervened in the shortage of staff by recruiting 1,700 personnel in the health sector. Of this number, he said that 250 staff members were recruited to work in the general hospitals, while 1,450 were recruited to work in the primary healthcare facilities.
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He said, “Our most daunting challenge before now is that there are inadequate health workers in most of the primary healthcare facilities. There has been a loud cry all this while. But thank God for the government of His Excellency, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang, who has approved the engagement of 1,700 workers for the state, health workers. And we believe this will at least reduce, even though there is still promise for more to be approved in the coming year, at least this is a start.”
“And we call this a remarkable achievement that is prompted by this project from our advocacies and advocacies of other partners working in the state. Now the government is prioritizing employing volunteers in the newest recruitment to be conducted and also of this approval for 1,700 staff, 250 goes to the general Hospital then 1450 is for the primary health care facilities, he stated.
The Director of Production and Quality Assurance, Dayol, who represented the Executive Secretary of the Plateau State Drugs and Medical Commodities Management Agency, said that the recent approval of N750 million by the governor and the release of N400 million had reinforced government’s confidence in the viability of the agency.
The traditional rule, Da Dung Jok, who lauded the achievements of the ATM networks, said that it had made drugs available in clinics in the local areas. “This programme has been successful because in most of the clinics that we went through, they had shortages of manpower, but with this now, you know, we will rest assured that the clinics will be up and doing, We will have more staff that will be working and we had volunteers being paid by the government,” he said.
