Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has approved the immediate recruitment of 246 medical personnel to boost healthcare delivery in the state.
Sule disclosed this when he hosted the National President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) at the Government House, Lafia on Friday.
He said the gesture was aimed at providing efficient healthcare services to the people of the state.
He listed the categories of the medical personnel to include: 30 additional medical doctors; 15 pharmacists and pharmaceutical technicians; 70 nurses, as well as 50 medical laboratory technicians.
Others, the governor said, are: 35 health and information management officers, 40 health assistants and 6 radiographers.
He said more needed to be done in terms of providing adequate staffing to efficiently man the various health facilities in the state, adding that the latest gesture by the state government was only a starting point.
Commenting on the issue of promotion for civil servants in the state, Sule stated that his administration would consider the matter as it affected every civil servant, and not only doctors.
He said anybody serving the people of the state would be assessed and promoted based on the resources available to the Government.
On the issues of doctors working in the state being taxed heavily, Sule assured the NMA officials that he had directed the state Accountant General to look into the matter, with a view to reversing any excess taxes, especially for medical doctors.
He thanked the doctors for their sacrifices during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, and urged them to continue to take all the necessary precautions as the pandemic was still around.
Earlier in his remarks, the National President of the NMA, Professor Innocent Ujah, commended the State Government for the cordial relationship existing between it and medical and dental practitioners in the state but said the relationship could be strengthened by the visit of the national officials of the NMA.
The national president said they were at the government house to inform the governor about certain issues they considered as barriers to healthcare delivery system.
