The Chief Medical Director of Jos University Teaching Hospital, Dr Pokop Bupwatda, says health workers in the institution are resigning daily in search of better conditions of service.
He called on stakeholders in the health sector to tackle what could be responsible for the brain drain in the sector urgently.
Bupwatda spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Jos for an interview.
According to him, the spate in which health workers resign daily is alarming, creating a human resource gap in the health sector.
“Daily, we see our health workers resigning in their numbers, this is a major challenge and this brain drain is really alarming, I get resignations on a daily basis, it is an emergency for us,” he said.
Bupwatda called on the agencies of government and their parastatals that are responsible for the replacement of health workers to make the process of recruitment and replacement easier.
He described the present process of recruitment of health workers as cumbersome, as waivers must be got from the Head of Service.
“The process of recruitment should be made easy to replace workers leaving the Nigeria health sector because workers on the ground are overwhelmed.
“It is salient to replace the workers leaving to avoid a human resource gap and to ensure that the health workers replacing the workers who resign can understudy them before their exit,” he said.
He assured the government that if the process of recruitment was made easier for the hospitals, such wouldn’t be abused.
He attributed the brain drain experienced in the health sector to health workers wanting better lives and better working environments.
He further also said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe and other parts of the world, lost a lot of their health workers and this caused a human resource gap.
“Such countries are, therefore, looking for health workers to bridge the human resources gap by offering better pay and working environment,” he observed.
Bupwatda appealed to the government to do more in pacifying health workers to stay back in terms of incentives and work environment.
He said that the “hospital is also faced with the challenge of funding and power in which they spend a lot of money in the purchase of diesel and general running of the hospital”.
