Shortage of nurses, midwives and some other technical personnel has created a situation in Adamawa State in which cleaners and ward attendants now do some duties meant for such professional staff.

Executive Chairman of the state Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Suleiman Bashir, who stated this in an interview published by the state-owned SCOPE Newspaper, said the situation prompted Governor Ahmadu Fintiri to lift embargo on employment in the health sector.

Suleiman Bashir said, ” What happens in the health sector currently is that we have so many facilities without manpower. The staff are getting overwhelmed. We have so many breakdowns, illnesses among our staff because of the burden of work.

“We are worried about lack of professionalism in the delivery of work. We have instances where those who are not technical workers in the health facilities – cleaners, ward attendants and sub-staff are performing technical duties.”

Explaining what he meant by technical workers, he said they are those who provide professional duties, including nurses, midwives, laboratory personnel, doctors and environmental health personnel.

He disclosed, however, that the state government had taken steps to address the manpower shortage in especially the primary healthcare centres across the state by engaging in a recruitment exercise to bring in the much-needed staff.

“We got executive approval to employ 1,113 technical health workers into the state Primary healthcare centres in the 21 local government areas,” he disclosed.