19th July, 2019
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has commended the Federal Government for improvement in infrastructure of the Primary Health Care (PHC) centres in the country.
Francis Faduyile, the President of NMA, made the commendation in an interview on Friday in Abuja.
Faduyile said that NMA had always expected that with improvement infrastrure, PHC would cater for up to 75 per cent of the populace, mostly in the rural areas.
He said that the move by the government to meet this target was commendable.
He, however, said that facilities at PHC centres across the country needed corresponding improvement in the number and qualities of staff, including doctors and other health workers.
The NMA chief noted that this would address a lot of diseases, and other medical burdens in the rural areas.
According to him, medical and health personnel retention at the rural level has been low as a result of poor remuneration.
This development, he noted, has caused brain drain in health personnel.
“This includes internal brain drain on the one hand and external brain drain on the other hand,” he said.
Faduyile called for the strengthening of primary health centres and states’ participation to improve the standard of health in the country.
He said the association had always advocated uniform pay for all medical and dental practitioners, irrespective of their employers, to retain health professionals in the rural areas.
He said that remuneration of medical and dental professionals, at all levels, would stabilise and improve the health sector.