Professor Mohammed Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, has disclosed that the federal government has committed to retraining 120,000 frontline health workers across the country.
The Minister noted that 10,000 of them had already been retrained across the country in order to fill the gap left by health workers, especially doctors, who left for greener pastures elsewhere.
This is even though the Association of Resident Doctors, ABUTH Zaria chapter, has given the federal government a 10-day ultimatum for the unconditional release of their colleague, Dr. Ganiyat Popoola, or risk industrial action.
They said, “We can’t guarantee industrial harmony if, by the 26th of August, she is not released/rescued.”
The coordinating minister disclosed that President Bola Tinubu was investing so much in transforming the health sector.
Pate spoke in Bauchi over the weekend, during the Medserve Ground Breaking ceremony for 10 Oncology and Diagnostic Centers at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital in Bauchi.
Pate explained that the president was investing so much in the health sector to ensure that every Nigerian has access to quality healthcare service delivery throughout the country.
“Mr. President is very clear; he wants to transform this country. He wants to change this country, and we’re lucky he chose health.”
“In just one year, he has accomplished unprecedented feats in the health sector in this country’s history,” Pate continues. He has initiated numerous initiatives, and by building on the work of Medserve, we are witnessing the implementation of 10 major infrastructural projects, marking a significant breakthrough.
“In 12 months, we will start opening them all across Nigeria. NSIA is working on 6,000 centers, and he believes funding is available. He anticipates completing and opening these centers within the next 12 to 18 months.
But Dr. Sultan Isah Adah, the Association of Resident Doctors, ABUTH Zaria chapter president, and Dr. Jimoh Aminat, secretary, insisted that the government must be proactive in securing the lives of the health workers first of all.
Recall that on December 27, 2023, bandits raided the hospital’s staff quarters, abducting Dr. Ganiyat Popoola, a mother of five and a six-month-old breastfeeding baby, along with her husband and a visiting nephew, Abdul-Mughniy Folaranmi.
Popoola’s husband was, however, subsequently released due to his deteriorating health condition, after meeting the demands of the abductors.
The association cautioned that if the abducted doctor was not rescued in 10 days, members would be forced to embark on an industrial action.
“We call upon the government, security agencies, and all relevant authorities to intensify efforts to secure their safe return.”
