The Bayelsa State Government has said that it will localise the employment of primary healthcare workers as part of measures to address challenges bedevilling the health sector.
Deputy Governor Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo gave the assurance last Thursday, at a one-day workshop on the status of primary healthcare services in the state held in Yenagoa.
Ewhrudjakpo said that government would first consider those who have been working as volunteer primary healthcare providers.
The deputy governor, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media to the Deputy Governor Mr Doubara Atasi, said the measure would help to check absenteeism and improve service delivery in the health sector.
He noted that the era of attaching sentiments to official duties were over, warning that primary healthcare workers who had formed the habit of absenting themselves from duty would be decisively dealt with.
Ewhrudjakpo directed all heads of department in the state primary healthcare board to be alive to their responsibilities and be effective in addressing truancy by staff of their respective health centers.
He said: “We are going to do a review of what you have done. We are going to be strict, both the mobilisers and the health workers must come from their own communities and must be resident in those communities, otherwise we would be repeating ourselves in a circle of collusion.
“More than 80 per cent of our health workers are here in Yenagoa, therefore, henceforth, we are going to localise this employment. If we must employ nurses and pharmacists, they must be resident in that community. The first criterion is, where is your residence?
“I also believe that our health workers need to change and when it comes to political interference, count me out. Go ask what I did to my own cousin.
“Recently, I directed that the salary of one of my cousins be suspended for three months alongside those who are working in the health centre in my community, Ofoni. Look, leadership that is set on sentiment and emotions is not leadership.
“So I am advising everybody,especially HODs, to take responsibility. This idea of buck passing and ineffective leadership is unacceptable. We must take liabilities and not only the assets.”
According to him, the workshop was organised to encourage community ownership of healthcare facilities domiciled in their areas and to charge the State Local Government Service Commission and the Primary Healthcare Board to perform their supervisory roles more effectively.
He said that although funding was solely the responsibility of the local government system, the state government would continue to play its role of resource mobilisation and supervision to ensure the realisation of set objectives in healthcare delivery.
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