gender differential paper IJCRB

ijcrb.webs.com
JUNE 2011
INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 3, NO 2
professionals’ and although it ideally encompasses doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists,
technologists, community /primary care workers.
African countries have a very low density health workforce, compounded by poor skill mix and
inadequate investment (Chen L et al 2004). Yet trained healthcare staff continues to migrate from
Africa to more developed countries. The World Health Organization (2004) has estimated that, to
meet the ambitious targets of the millennium development goals, African health services will
need to train and retain an extra one million health workers by 2010.
It is therefore appropriate to state that any country that tends to have a low level of human
resources for health (HRH) would not be on tract in reaching the health MDGs. Insufficient HRH
capacity is definitely one of the key barriers to scaling up health services in Nigeria 5 . The impact
of the HRH shortage is greater in the developing countries as compared to the developed
countries. This scenario is currently worsened by the diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB and
Malaria that are exacting greatest toll in these same countries most especially Nigeria.
HRH is not all about numbers. It involves distribution, quality and productivity. In essence HRH
is concerned with getting the right number of staff, in the right places, at the right time, doing the
right job, with the right motivation, at the right cost.
This study reviewed HRH in Nigeria the trend from independent, various cadres, of health the
workforce, production, distribution; it also discusses the challenges including overall impact on
health systems with appropriate recommendations
The methods include detail desk reviewed of local, national and international documents and indepth
interview of desk officers in charge of HRH at National and Sate levels, some staff of
MOH and Stakeholders
The trend in Development of Human Resources for Health in Nigeria from Independence
through Basic Health Service Scheme (BHSS) and various National Development Plans
Human Resources for Health Prior to BHSS Training as ‘Local Health Visitor’ began in
Nigeria as early as 1949 when girls with Middle II schooling who were Grade II midwives were
trained for the new Rural Health Centers in Western Nigeria. This then evolved into the idea of
‘community nurse’, an auxiliary health visitor, receiving six months’ or a year’s training in a
health auxiliary training school, based on Grade II Midwifery background(Schram, 1971) 8 . By
1958, with the assistance of the WHO, training facilities were expanded and the Ibadan Health
Auxiliary Training School which by now had replaced the old school trained all categoriespublic
health inspectors, community nurses, family visitors, leprosy inspectors, dispensary
attendants, and health overseers, and organized refresher courses. Similar trainings were offered
in the Medical Auxiliary Training School in Kaduna and School of Hygiene in Kano in Northern
Nigeria, as well as the School of Hygiene in Aba and Oji River Rural Health Training School in
the East. Various categories of health workers existed in different parts of Nigeria before the
BHSS.
With the introduction of the BHSS in 1977, the need arose for streamlining the recruitment,
training and utilization of these health workers.
Consequently the federal government through the Basic Health Services Scheme Implementation
Agency (BHSSIA) of the Federal Ministry of Health decided to regroup them in 1977 (some
after retraining) into four cadres of “core” polyvalent workers and these have remained the core
primary health workers in Nigeria’s PHC system. See table 1
In 2009 MSS scheme was introduced
COPY RIGHT © 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 1952