News
800,000 Nurses Needed To Meet Growing Population, NANNM Confirms
A medical expert says Nigeria needs about 800,000 nurses and midwives to meet up with its teeming population of over 200 million people.
He said the computation agreed with the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) put in place by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to the WHO, WISN serves as a roadmap for scaling up human resources for improved health service delivery in the African region between 2012 and 2025.
It lays emphasis on the availability of sufficient numbers of qualified health workers in the right place as essential for the delivery of quality health services to the population.
WISN also drew global attention to the critical shortage of skilled health professionals such as physicians, nurses and midwives in 57 African countries.
Speaking with newsmen, President of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Adeniji Abdrafiu, said the shortage of manpower has left a large vacuum in the health sector.
“Ordinarily, we should have about 800,000 nurses and midwives to Nigeria’s population of about 210 million. But in reality, what we have is less than 200,000 nurses operating in the country.
“It leaves a large vacuum in the system that must be filled. To do that, we must be strategic about it and ensure we don’t promote one group to the detriment of others.
“A situation where one of the medical teams tries to play the role of the other would not augur well for the health sector,” he said.
Beyond the recruitment of additional manpower, Abdrafiu said, the government must invest more on training nurses in the country.
“We still have a very long gap to fill in the area of getting personnel to train Nigerian nurses. The government must look into the area of having residency programme for nurses. That way, we would have filled the gap,” Abdrafiu said.
In his general assessment of the health sector as the country marks 60th Independence anniversary, the veteran nurse said much needed to be done.
“In the past 60 years, we can say there have been one or two attempts at improving the quality of services and entire healthcare system. This is because it is the healthcare system that renders services.
“To make that system work, there are four areas involved, namely, government policy, health professionals, healthcare services being rendered and the infrastructure,” he said.
He expressed concerns that that there was a lot of policy summersault in the country, which adversely affects the performance of the healthcare system at large.
“When you don’t have sustainable or practicable policy, there is no way you are going to achieve anything. In that area, we need to do more to ensure that we have well researched and all-encompassing healthcare policy.
“We have also not been able to democratise policy formulation in this country because of our talk-down approach and there is less involvement of people, especially key stakeholders in policy formulation. This is seriously affecting us,” he stated.
News
Mba Seeks Closer Synergy To Check Road Accidents
Worried over the high rate of accidents on Nigerian roads, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the Governor of Enugu State, Barr Peter Mbah, has called for closer synergy and cooperation among security agencies to check the ugly trend and ensure safety on all the roads within the country.
Governor Mbah, made the call in an address at the Graduation Ceremony of Senior Course 2 of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Command and Staff College, Udi near Enugu.
Represented by the state Commissioner for Information, Chief Aka Eze Aka, governor Mbah noted that closer security and intelligence sharing on incidents on roads within the country by various security formations and agencies both military and para-military would lead to greater security and safety of lives and property on roads.
He stated that the state government had keyed into the FRSC vision of reduction in road crashes and fatalities, adding that it had equipped the state traffic officers with the same set targets.
“As an administration, we are making all efforts to fix and improve on all roads and road infrastructure within the state; while we are calling on the Federal Government to do the same.
“Our partnership with the FRSC for training and retraining of our road traffic officers will continue and be strengthened so that as a state it will also build its own capacity to deal with road traffic issues and challenges,” he said.
Governor Mbah, however, congratulated the graduating participants of the course, while commending the FRSC management for being in the forefront of raising the standard and quality of its staff.
According to him, “my administration will continue to partner with the FRSC and strengthen existing engagements of mutual benefits”.
Earlier, the FRSC Corps Marshal, Dauda Biu, said that the event was significant to the Corps as it marked its commitment to continuously improve its educational and operational standard and capacity.
Biu, represented by the Deputy Corps Marshal (DCM) Bisi Kazeem, who is in-charge of FRSC Training, said that the Corps was building resiliency and increasing its service delivery capacity by equipping its officers with quality and international standard training.
By: Canice Amadi Enugu
News
PDP Opobo/Nkoro Hails Fubara On Peace, Projects
Stakeholders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Opobo/ Nkoro Local Government Area of Rivers State have commended the state Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara for his disposition that has fostered peace in the State.
Rising from an expanded stakeholders meeting last Saturday in Opobo Town, the body in an eight-point communique signed by its Chairman, Hon. Benneth Daminabo, Chairman of Council, Rt. Hon. Enyiada Cookey-Gam and LG party Chairman, Warisenibo Godwin Pepple commended the governor for linking Opobo/Nkoro LGA to the national grid.
In addition, it lauded the effort of the governor in pursuing the 50.15 kilometre Dual Carriage Ring Road, Elelenwo internal road, Aleto-Ebubu-Eteo Road in Eleme and Andoni Road projects.
Despite the distractions, the stakeholders said they were impressed that the governor had equally done projects in health-the unveiling of Prof. Kelsey Harrison Hospital, Agric projects at Tai and Oyigbo and improving welfare of civil servants.
In their words, “members reaffirmed their unalloyed loyalty and implicit confidence in his administration.”
Condemning the unfriendly and discourteous utterances of Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and Tony Okocha in different fora in the State, the forum urged the duo to desist from such action in order not to heat up the polity.
The forum pledged to stand by the governor through, “thick and thin”, the stakeholders acknowledged the contributions of women, who through prayers for the government has impacted positively in the direction and posture of the governor.
Finally, the forum unanimously expressed gratitude to the Simplified Movement and other bodies that have thrown their weight behind the governor to ensure that the administration is stable and successful.
By: Kevin Nengia
News
‘Rivers People Are Now Breathing Fresh Air Under Fubara’
Aformer Caretaker Committee Chairman of Abua/Odual Local Government Council of Rivers State, Hon Elamo Arogu, says under Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the people of the State are now breathing fresh air.
Hon Arogu said Governor Fubara has given Rivers people hope, considering the impactful and people-oriented projects being carried out by his administration.
The former CTC chairman made the assertion during the Simplified Movement’s thanksgiving service and rally held in honour of Rivers State chief executive last Friday in Abua .
Arogu said under Governor Fubara, the Abua/Odual people have the confidence that the dividends of democracy will definitely get to them.
He noted that the Governor has the strong will to change the narrative in Rivers State, being the reason he is receiving massive support across the State.
“The people of Abua/Odual are strongly behind him. Our doors ate open for everyone because there is government in place to attend to the needs of the people. I believe that he will develop Abua/Odual and other Rivers council areas, hence, the massive support. This government is business- oriented and we are ready to encourage him succeed and invest in our land. The issue of a bank; road networks and other necessities of life bordering on development as demanded by the people will be considered by Governor Fubara”, he said.
He called on the opposition to team up with Governor Fubara to build a stronger, united and viable Rivers State.
He maintained that ward nine under his leadership is Simplified.
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