By Ken Stanley

A renowned Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Prof. George Ugwu, has decried the dearth of medical personnel in Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) and secondary hospitals, also known as general hospitals.

Ugwu, with the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Ituku-Ozala, Enugu, told newsmen in Enugu on Monday that there was a need to build more health personnel training institutions and colleges.

He noted that the gap in the manpower need of various health facilities continue to widen each month as health personnel leave in drove for greener pastures overseas.

According to him, the dearth of health personnel is clearly evident in most PHCs and general hospitals as the basic health personnel requirement no longer exist.

He said, “Our standard is affected by a huge gap in manpower needs in various hospitals from PHCs to general hospitals.

“This manpower gap is being exploited by quacks and patent drug dealers (claiming to be doctors) that cause lots of health complications.

“As these complications occur, these quacks advise their patients to go to a formal hospital and then, referrals are made to teaching hospitals to solve the complications.

“Most of our trained and competent health professionals are leaving to seek greener pastures overseas and the foreign countries have found out that it costs less to import a health practitioner than training one in their countries.”

Ugwu, who is the immediate past Executive Secretary of Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency, noted that building physical health structure and buying equipment are good; but a health facility stands out due to competent health professionals.
 

He called on the government at all levels to ensure that adequate arrangement are made to get professional health practitioners to man any proposed health facility even before commencement of building and equipping such facility.

“Government and authorities should emphasis training and retraining of health practitioners even after school to regularly update their knowledge and for them to adopt latest form of best practices,” he added.