Oyo Commissioner calls for concerted efforts of stakeholders to address brain drain

The Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Bode Ladipo, has called for concerted efforts of all stakeholders to address the issue of brain drain in the nation’s health sector.

Ladipo made the call at a Town Hall Meeting on “Primary Healthcare Services” organised by Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), in collaboration with the International Budget Partnership in Ibadan on Thursday.

According to him, the issue of brain drain has to be an holistic thing that needs to be looked at in all ramifications of governments.

“There is need to have concerted efforts that require all the stakeholders, three tiers of government, civil society groups and community leaders to sit down and address the issue of brain drain in the nation’s health sector collectively.

“We all have to make our inputs toward addressing this challenge that has been hindering effective healthcare delivery in the country.

“There is need for more robostic engagement of the stakeholders in addressing the issue of mass exodus of the nation’s health personnel,” he said.

To address this challenge in the state, Ladipo said that the state was the first to start “An Exit Replacement Policy,” which he said, was actually shared it at the National Council for Health.

He said, “The plan is that within the last two years, many of the health personnel we recruited in Oyo State had left the country.

“To curtail the challenge of brain drain, the state Hospital Management Board was given the mandate to recruit health personnel as replacement to those exiting the system without necessarily going back to the government for approval and it cut across all cadres.

“The system has been assisting us, at least, we are not totally depleted in the state health facilities.”

On incentives, Ladipo said that it was not the issue of incentives that was making the medical personnel to leave the country.

“It is the prevailing condition of insecurity and poor condition of living that are responsible for their leaving the country.

“Even, if our Nigerian medical personnel are collecting an average of N500,000 monthly, they will still leave the country for greener pastures whenever they have the opportunity.

“In fact, UCH has lost about 609 of its medical personnel within the last three months, whereas the federal system is paying heavily and still they are leaving.

“Their leaving is not about renumeration, it is about the condition of things in the country.

“Unfortunately, the UK has now opened its doors to teachers and if we are not careful, that same drain brain we are experiencing in the health sector will affect the education sector.

“Oyo State started the rural posting allowance as people in the rural sector are earning more than those in the urban centres, just to keep them in their places of assignments.

“The state government was the first in the country to give allowance to health personnel during the COVID-19.”

In his remarks, Mr Jide Bamgbose, the Convener of meeting said, “The purpose of the Town Hall Meeting is to bridge the communication gap between the people and those in government.

“This is because the people are rendering service, while there is need to give the government the feedback.

“Another reason for the programme is the need to forge a collective force to really address some of the fundamentals at the basic healthcare facilities in the community.”

Bamgbose urged leaders of the Ward Development Committee (WDC) to focus on sectoral committee and hold the political and office holders accountable on salient issues that affected them instead of dissipating their energies on landlords/landladies’ crises.

He, however, assured members of the Joint National Association of People With Disability that they would not be neglected in any of the government policies that would be of immense benefit to them.

Also commenting, Dr Muyideen Olatunji, the Executive Secretary, Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, said that the state government has been providing the needed drugs in the state health facilities free of charge for the patients.

Olatunji, however, urged members of the public to always alert the state government about the activities of saboteurs in the society who were all out to sabotage the government’s efforts.