(http://fmi.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ONYEBUCHICHUKWUHEALTH2-300x238.gif) The Minister of Health, Prof. C.O. Onyebuchi Chukwu has said that human resources is an important element of the health system and it is one of the six building blocks for strengthening health systems.
The Minister stated this in Abuja at the National Stakeholders' Conference for Validation and Adaption of the Human Resources for Health Information System.
He said that without adequate availability of well trained, motivated, experienced and skilled human resources for health, no health system will be able to deliver the health needs of the people.
The Minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Fatima Bamidele said the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with the States and development partners, identified human resources for health as one of the eight priority areas of the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) adding that one of the strategic objectives of the Human Resources for Health (HRH) priority area is the establishment of the (HRH) Information System.
The Minister expressed optimism that the HRH Information system when developed is expected to contain baseline information on the available HRH in the country as part of what is referred to as the HRH Workforce Registry using a minimum data set.
Prof. Chukwu explained that the health workforce registry is expected to accomplish among other things capturing new graduates from the various health training institutions annually, to capturing the institutional affiliation of each health care worker with the relevant regulatory bodies and also to present summary statistics based on a number of HRH indicator to showcase the country's HRH status in relation to local and international benchmarks.
He said further that as part of the priority initiatives of the Ministry's Action Push agenda, which is one of the means for fast-tracking the implementation of the NSHDP, the Ministry commenced the process for the development of the HRH Information System in 2010, stressing that this has been in operation concurrently with other strategies such as the Midwives' Service Scheme to improve the HRH situation in the country.
The Minister disclosed that his Ministry is collaborating with the WHO and US CDC to collect a minimum set of data from Cross River, Lagos, Sokoto, Taraba States and the FCT, which could be used to design and showcase the HRH Workforce Registry.
Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria