The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Ali Pate, has provided some hope for Nigerian health professionals, promising adjustment in their wages very soon.
The Minister made the announcement on Channels Television’s May 29 Special show, which commemorated President Bola Tinubu’s first anniversary.
Asked if there will be a significant increase in the salary of health workers soon, Pate said: “I think in the context of compensation for workers in Nigeria we should expect an adjustment.”
Over the years, health professionals in Nigeria have several times complained of low wages as well as non-payment of their hazard allowance among others. This has in many occasions led to industrial actions creating instability in the nation’s health sector.
As a result of the instability some of these issues have created in the nation’s health sector, many of Nigeria’s health professionals have migrated to other countries, creating a brain drain in the sector.
Speaking on the brain drain in the health sector, however, the Health Minister said that President Tinubu’s administration had taken some decisive policy steps which are now addressing that problem.
According to him, some of the professionals who have left the shores of Nigeria for greener pastures are now seeking to return to the country.
“We increased the quota for the training of health workers, we doubled it. It is going to take a few years for the training to increase so that you can see the impact; that is a decisive policy step.
“Now, in terms of recruitment through the primary health system, 2,497 nurses, midwives, and doctors have been deployed in our primary healthcare centres under this one year,” Pate said.
“Now, there are trends that we have also seen of many of our professionals trying to come back to Nigeria to work in the private sector and also contribute in the public sector.
“There are several of them in the state government and some of them in the private sector. It is ongoing and we should continue.”
The Minister said the issue of human resources is not limited to Nigeria as countries like the United Kingdom and the United States are all facing the same problem.
He noted that Nigeria is now taking decisive decisions to address it by expanding the training of those professionals to be able to deliver services at home.