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Dr Janet Ekpenyong, DG, Cross River primary healthcare development agency
By Akpan David, Calabar
The Director General of Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Janet Ekpenyong has called on the federal government to prioritize high incentives and welfare of medical personnel, especially in the rural areas.
In an interview, she posited that it was time for government to begin to enact a policy to stem flight of these important personnel from primary healthcare centres.
“It is time for us to begin ensure that welfare of doctors and other health workers were prioritised both in the State and at federal levels.”
She lamented that despite their efforts at higher incentives to entice midwives, nurses and some other health workers to work at primary health centres in rural areas of the state, a good number of them continue to desert the place.
Ekpenyong said that human resource was a huge problem affecting her agency.
She disclosed that efforts to contract the retired ones back and encourage them to stay in designated places close to the local facilities have failed.
“What we do is that those we recruit are domiciled in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately we come to realise that most of them actual reside in the urban centres.
She explained that the state government had opted to harmonize the state medical salary payment with that of the federal yet it has not been able to stem the flight of doctors from rural areas.
“I may not have the exact numbers that have left the primary healthcare agency or the state but the number is really huge.
“Even as we try to bring in the retired ones, yet many still remain in the towns. We are trying to contract them back to the rural communities with improved incentives to encourage them to stay. This is why government is now sending civil servants back to communities.”
According to her, whenever they are able to bring in qualified personnel once they hear of higher opportunities they abandon the work at the primary level and go away.
“There was a time we had new doctors at general hospitals but when University of Calabar Teaching Hospital started to employ they all deserted us. Some even moved abroad.’
She disclosed that the brain drain in the health sector is not limited to Cross River State but that it is a national problem.
