News Investigators/ The Commissioner for Health in Osun, Jola Akintola, says the state government is planing to engage retired doctors to make up for the scarcity of doctors.
He made this known in Osogbo on Thursday during the ministry’s budget defence at the Osun House of Assembly.
The commissioner, who said that the state is facing dearth of doctors, added that “majority have left the country.
“We intend to recruit retired doctors who are not tired to fill the needed number of doctors in our health facilities.
“We are planning to engage retired doctors because many of them have travelled abroad for greener pastures.”
He explained that when engaged, the retired doctors would bring on-board their wealth of experience to impact the lives the Nigerians and offer good healthcare to the people.
He said the ministry had earlier been given the go-ahead to employ more staff but the issue of the new minimum wage, which was just settled in the state, delayed the recruitment process.
On his part, Afolabi Babatunde, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of UniOsun Teaching Hospital, while also defending the budget of the hospital, stressed the importance of having more medical staff.
Mr Babatunde said that UniOsun Teaching Hospital currently has one nurse to 19 patients, which is not in conformation with the one nurse to three patients recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He added that when he resumed as the CMD in October, he did an assessment need of the hospital and discovered that the health facility spends more money than it generates.
He explained that the cost of paying staff not under state government payroll, buying diesel and paying for electricity in a month is about N140 million, which is far more than what is generated.
He said some key equipment like the CT Scan machine, MRI machine and others are not available at the hospital.
He solicited the help of the assembly for more funding, saying “what is allocated in the budget for the hospital is not sufficient.”
The Chairman, Osun Assembly Finance and Appropriation Committee, Saheed Fatunmise, who heads the budget defence, said that the CMD’s appeal is noted, and the hospital’s budget taken.
NAN