The Federal Government has revealed that Nigeria needs to hire 122,696 trained frontline health workers to meet critical shortage of health workers across primary healthcare facilities in 26 states in the next three years.
Zaiyanatu Umar, the Human Resources for Health and Project Management Lead of the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) Coordination Office, told the 15th Expanded Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC) meeting in Abuja that the findings were presented.
The assessment is part of the Federal Government’s plan to revitalise Primary Health Care (PHC) services nationwide through the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate.
The staff shortage problem was detected during a Pan-National assessment of workforce that compared the workforce requirements based on the National Primary Health Care Minimum Staffing Standards (NPHMSS) with the existing workforce in all of the participating states, said Umar.
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The exercise – conducted with validated baseline information reporting by 26 States – found that there are 122,696 health workers missing, and eight States have not yet completed and validated health worker figures.
She said that the proposed cost of N6.42trillion to recruit and deploy health workers across the country would be done in phases over three years time.
The shortage is present in almost all types of front-line health workers such as medical officers, nurses, midwives, community health extension workers (CHEWs), laboratory workers, pharmacy technicians and environmental health officers who work at the grassroots to provide critical medical services.
The revelation has come as the Federal Government is putting in notable efforts to ensure the betterment of Nigeria’s primary healthcare system as part of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, a major reform programme championed by Professor Pate aimed at increasing access to healthcare services, decreasing maternal and child mortality, expanding immunisation coverage and fast-tracking the path to Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
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Poor health services delivery in Nigeria has consistently been reported as a problem of lack of workforce. Many primary health care services, especially in remote and rural areas, are understaffed, or are unable to provide important services like immunisation and routine health examinations, childcare, and the capacity to address diseases and emergencies including those affecting pregnant women.
The exodus of health staff to other countries, an unequal distribution of workers to urban rather than rural regions and the lack of investment for recruitment over the years have worsened the situation.
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) will be tasked to fulfil the workforce gap in collaboration with development partners involved in implementing the SWAp programme, together with the federal and state governments. To build a resilient and responsive primary health care (PHC) system to overcome the shortcomings, the more the skilled health workers the better the place in the eyes of the officials.
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Compared to the last evaluation, the latest one points out that there’s so much more to healthcare reform than building or renovating facilities.
Experts have also warned that the lack of doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers will continue to restrict Nigerians’ ability to access quality health service due to the increasing number of population, thereby adding to the stretched secondary and tertiary hospitals.
