Federal Govt To Grant Waivers For Employment Of Health Workers

As part of efforts to improve healthcare delivery in the country, the federal government has set up a committee to look into the issue of accumulated waiver requests for employment of health workers in the various hospitals.

Minister of state for health, Dr. Tunji Alausa, made this known when he paid a familiarisation visit to the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan as part of his ongoing over-sight function visits to assess federal government-owned health institutions in the country.

In a statement signed by the ministry’s director of information, Patricia Deworitshe, Alausa said; “This is due to some bottle necks faced by our chief medical and medical directors in the process of getting waiver approvals. We reached out to the Head of Service of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Esan, who has been on top, working judiciously to get these approvals, but we just all decided that it will be easier if the waiver process starts from the ministry. So going forward from January, we are setting up a waiver committee at the ministry that will promptly review and address all waiver requests from all our hospitals.”

Assuring of accountability and transparency in the process, Alausa said each hospital would generate a request for the number of staff needed to the ministry, which would then go to the HOSF for some checks and balances under the establishment law to see what’s budgeted for the year.

“Once the ministry confirms that everything is verified, approval for the waiver will be sent to the budget office were the funds will be made available, there won’t be delays anymore”, the minister stated.

The chief medical director of UCH, Prof. Jesse Otegbayo, highlighted some of the challenges faced as well as achievements which include specialised surgical procedures in partnership with some UK-based charities and other organisations as well as donations of equipment and infrastructure by well-meaning Nigerians.