Reps flay delay in recruitments to fill gaps created by Japa

The House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions has expressed concerns over alleged delay in recruitments to fill gaps that resulted from mass exodus of health professionals.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals frequently leave the country for better opportunities abroad, a trend that has come to be termed Japa.

The House Committee, led on a visit by its chairman, Amos Magaji, to the Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital, MAUTH, in Yola, Adamawa State, said the relevant authorities had not been addressing the syndrome appropriately.

The committee chairman who said the committee was at MAUTH to inspect capital projects, facility capacity, manpower, and programs, said recruitments in facilities around the country had not been keeping pace with service withdrawals.

“We face the challenge of Japa; many doctors and nurses are leaving, and there’s delay in approval for recruitment to close the gaps,” he said.

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Magaji said the gaps were widespread, just as he acknowledged MAUTH’s own dissatisfaction with inadequate staffing.

He said however that his committee was satisfied with how the hospital fares in regard to meeting clinical standards in a hygienic environment.

The MAUTH Chief Medical Director Prof. Adamu Bakari Girei, told the committee that the hospital had grown from 100 to a 720-bed capacity, but requested further interventions in waterworks, road network, and other facility upgrades.

During the oversight visit, the House Committee on Health Institutions toured MAUTH’s Residents Doctors Quarters, Psychiatric Block, College of Nursing and Midwifery, ENT and Ophthalmology Complex, female and male surgical wards and theatres.