Prof. Francis Faduyile, Special Adviser to Ondo State Governor on Health, has lamented brain drain in the health sector, saying the exodus has led to dearth of health workers in the state public service.
Faduyile stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Akure on Sunday.
He, however, expressed hope of early recruitment of health workers into the state civil service to close the gap.
“The situation on ground has shown that a lot of doctors, nurses, and health workers have left, but we have decided to look at the gap, hence our personnel audit.
“We have concluded an audit of our health personnel, we are tabulating the difference and we will use this to discuss with the governor. We are hoping for a recruitment after we have gotten the gap.
“We are not working on a hypothetical figure. We want to be factual. So am very positive that the governor will help us to bridge the gap,” he said.
Faduyile, a former president of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), while noting that brain drain was not peculiar to Ondo state, said the state government has started bringing more investors into the health sector.
Speaking on the Abiyamo Maternal and Child Scheme, an initiative of the state government to promote access to maternal and child care, he said the programme has seven main facilities as well as the 203 wards in the state.
“The scheme is working perfectly and we have catered for the anti natal care of 15,824 women, with 6,245 deliveries from inception till December, 2021.
“For the deliveries, 4,555 were Spontaneous Vaginal Deliveries, (SVD), while 1,690 delivered through Caesarian Section (CS).
“6,084 of the deliveries were single births, 156 twins, and four triplets with one quadruplet. Of the deliveries, we had 3,250 male and 314 female children.
“N3.43 million has been spent to provide Anti D injection free-of-charge to pregnant women who are Rhesus negative, while the mortality we have had is a paltry five or six.
“Today, the problem with the Abiyamo Scheme is that the price of drugs, consumables and reagents over the years has skyrocketed so it seems it is not enough to cater appropriately for individual patients,” he said.
The S.A explained that the Abiyamo Scheme would be incorporated into the state contributory health insurance scheme, where it would be managed from a pooled of funds.
Faduyile also said the state government was working on how to increase the capitation to improve the funding per individual patient to ensure the sustainability of the programme.
“The amount coming in from the government coffers is not sustainable hence the only sustainable path is the contributory scheme, which we believe, will mop everything up,” he said. (NAN)
