Staff Writer
The Department of Health and Social Care in the UK has pledged £2 million to help the Nigerian government expand its health personnel in order to realize its goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The World Health Organization, WHO, who facilitated the change, welcomed the new funding commitment and said it would support Nigeria’s government for two years in improving the performance, quality, and impact of the health workforce through evidence-based policies and strategies.
The UK gave three African nations—Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana—a multimillion-pound boost to help with healthcare personnel recruitment and retention in order to build resilience against global health concerns.
Nigeria’s health system, like those of many other developing nations, has struggled to build a strong foundation for providing high-quality medical care, promoting good health, and preventing disease. The recent COVID-19 pandemic, which has a direct impact on the availability of health personnel to provide top-notch services across the nation, has made the problems even more difficult.
A trained, motivated, and sufficient health staff is essential for Nigeria to #EndPreventableDeaths and develop resilience against external threats, according to Dr. Richard Montgomery, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria.
The strategy plan for the Nigerian health workforce is aligned with the support from the UK for International Development, which will also assist Nigeria in upskilling its personnel and enhancing long-term health outcomes.
The two-year HRH project aims to assist regulatory bodies, professional associations, and other important stakeholders in helping the government at the national and sub-national levels develop transformative strategies for increasing the quantity and quality of health workers, including the development and reviews of competency-based curricula.
The capacity of institutions, including regulatory bodies, will be strengthened for effective public policy stewardship, leadership, and governance. It will also help to maximize health workers’ retention, equitable distribution, and performance. It will also help to strengthen the management of Health workforce data for monitoring and accountability. Interventions will be made in Nigeria as part of the project.
The project will make use of WHO’s technical capacity to improve health systems, including its track record of carrying out comparable initiatives with notable outcomes in the past. The 37 WHO sub-national offices in Nigeria will be a foundation for implementation at the sub-national level, with a focus on the six states of Cross River, Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, and Lagos. These states will also be a source of technical assistance for state governments.
“The strength of every health system reflects the capacity and adequacy of its health workforce, which are necessary to deliver quality services to address population health needs,” said WHO Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo. “Nigeria needs a sufficient number of health personnel who are qualified for the job, driven to succeed, and evenly deployed across the subnational levels to improve equity in access to their services by the population in need. “We will use the technical assistance from the three levels of the organization, provided generously by the UK government through the WHO, to support the development of evidence-based policies and strategies, capacity building, and management for better planning and management of Nigeria’s health workforce.”
