Kwara govt launches health registry to unmask ghost workers

The Kwara Government on Thursday launched the health workforce registry for proper planning and curbing the profession of ghost workers.

NAN reports that the government is running the system in collaboration with Management Sciences for Health (MSH).

Speaking during the launching in Ilorin, the Country Representative, Management Sciences for Health in Nigeria, Dr Zipporah Kpamor‎, said the application would help the state ministry of health to know its staff by category.

This, she said, would include how many doctors, nurses, midwives, community health workers, environmental health workers, lab scientists and technologists they have and their area of specialisation.

'The application will also help them to know the numbers and where they are posted.

'The commissioner, permanent secretary and director of planning of the ministry would be able to know all these information by a press of a button and that will help them to know where to post their staff.

'This will help them meet the policy thrust of the Federal Ministry of Health which is to make one functional PAC in every political ward,' she said.

She explained that by being functional is to have the appropriate number of category of staff to be able to provide the minimum primary healthcare package.

'It will also help them to make decisions on recruitment, promotion, training and retirement so as not to fall short of staff,' she said.

According to her, another advantage is that it will help in better planning and the issue of ghost workers won't arise again because it will help the ministry to know how many of its staff have retired.

On the role of MSH in the registry, she disclosed that MSH help ministries of health to be able to get information at their finger tips to be able to improve health and safe lives in the communities.

Kpamor added that the launching was a call to action for other states of the federation as only nine out of the 36 states in the country have keyed into the initiative since its inauguration ‎in 2013 by the Federal Government.

The state Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Sulaiman Atolagbe, noted that the registry would bring together profiles and status of different health workers in various health institutions.

He added that this would help health training institutions and health professional bodies.

Atolagbe recalled that the state government had fulfilled the term of reference set for the technical working group after it was inaugurated in 2015 at the ministry of health.

He assured that the government will support the promotion of the project and ensure success through provision of required logistics to make Kwara maintain her leading position.

He said the scope of the registry included health workers and database aimed at authenticating, validating and aggregating data for planning and management of human resources for health in the state.