JUTH management laments massive resignation of health workers, calls for review of recruitment process
JUTH management laments massive resignation of health workers, calls for review of recruitment process
The Chief Medical Director of Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), Dr Pokop Bupwatda, has lamented the rate at which health workers in the institution resign daily in search of better conditions of service.
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 by removing the cumbersome procedure of obtaining waivers from the Head of Service.
Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos, Dr Bupwatda urged stakeholders in the health sector to address what could be responsible for the unprecedented rise of brain drain in the 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 resignation letters on a daily basis, it is an emergency for us,” he said.
“The process of recruitment should be made easy to replace workers leaving the Nigeria health sector because workers on 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 a better working environment.
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe and other parts of the world, lost a lot of their health workers and this has caused a human resource gap.
“Such countries are, therefore, looking for health workers to replace the lost ones 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 and offer better funding and make power available to hospitals.