“Our health workers don’t want to work anymore” doctor laments

The Chief Medical Director of Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), Dr Pokop Bupwatda lamented that health workers resign more often than before because of lack of good working conditions.

He pleaded on stakeholders in the health sector to improve the health system.

According to him, the spate in which health workers resign daily is alarming, creating human resource gap in health sector.

“Daily, we see our health workers resigning in their numbers, this is a major challenge and this brain drain is really alarming, I get resignation on a daily basis, it is an emergency for us,” he said.

Bupwatda called on the agencies of government and their parastatals that are responsible for the replacement of health workers to make the process of recruitment and replacement easier.

“It is salient to replace the workers leaving to avoid a human resource gap and to ensure that the health workers replacing the workers who resign can understudy them before their exit,” he said.

He assured the government that if the process of recruitment was made easier for the hospitals, such wouldn’t be abused.

He attributed the brain drain experienced in the health sector to health workers wanting better lives and better working environment.

He further also said that during COVID-19 pandemic, Europe and other parts of the world, lost a lot of its health workers and these caused a human resource gap.

“Such countries are, therefore, looking for health workers to bridge the human resources gap by offering better pay and working environment,” he observed.

Bupwatda appealed to the government to stop the daily resignations and come in terms of incentives and a better work environment.

He said that the “hospital is also faced with the challenge of funding and power in which they spend a lot of money in the purchase of diesel and general running of the hospital”.