The Kwara State Government has expressed serious concern over its inability to recruit medical doctors to effectively attend to thousands of patients across government hospitals in the sixteen local government areas of the state, despite offering attractive salaries and allowances that are competitive with those of federal workers.
The Executive Secretary of the Kwara State Hospital Management Board, Dr. AbdulRaheem AbdulMalik, made this known on Tuesday during the quarterly ministerial press briefing of the state government in Ilorin. He attributed the challenge to the “Japa syndrome” and the blunt refusal of doctors to work in rural areas.
AbdulMalik stated that currently, there are only 89 medical doctors in the state, far below the approximately 200 that are needed. He added that a female doctor who was recently recruited and posted to Offa General Hospital failed to resume duty even for a single day.
“After His Excellency increased the salary, three of those who had left returned. So, we have 89 right now, and we are still expecting more,” he said.
Nevertheless, he explained that to mitigate the impact of the shortage of medical doctors in the state, the government is developing an application that would enable patients to track the time a particular doctor is on duty, rather than waiting endlessly, as is currently experienced in some government hospitals.
He further stated that, to address this fundamental problem, the government is working on sponsoring medical students in universities with an agreement that they will serve the state after graduation, to reciprocate the investment made in their education.
According to him, “The major challenge is in the rural areas. We are trying to adopt strategies used in the Western world, while working within the resources available to the state.”
“We have presented prerequisites to His Excellency for selecting students from medical schools. The state would sponsor them for a year or two, and they would be required to work for the state for the same number of years. That means we would have a continuous cycle. For instance, if the government sponsors you for three years, you would work for three years before leaving, and that way, we can close the gap in the shortage of doctors. Of course, this would begin to take effect in about three to four years, since we are starting from the clinical level, which is 400 level,” he explained.
AbdulMalik, however, noted that the state is not as desperate for nurses as it is for doctors. He said, “We are not as desperate for nurses because the social circumstances favor their remaining in the country. Most nurses are women, and their movement often depends on where their husbands are stationed. Some do leave the country, but the situation is not as critical.”
Commissioner for Communications, Mrs. Bola Olukoju, who coordinated the ministerial press briefing, also expressed the commitment of the state government to tackle kidnapping and banditry, through effective synergy with security agencies and other local security outfits.
The post Kwara Laments Doctor Shortage Despite Competitive Pay, Cites ‘Japa Syndrome’ And Rural Posting Rejection appeared first on TheNigeriaLawyer.
3 min read
513 words
5 views