The Commissioner who spoke to www.calitown.com in her office, explained that in line with the commitment of the present administration to effectively deliver in the health sector, the nurses will be employed and expressly deployed to support the 63 doctors in the state’s 14 general hospitals. She decried the present shortage in the number of qualified nurses in the state’s health institutions pointing out that this has in part been responsible for the ugly situation where ward orderlies have had to fill in for nurses, performing functions they are ill-equipped to handle.
For indigenes who graduate from the CRS College of Health Technology, the Commisioner hinted that the state governor has directed that only these category of persons be employed into the state’s Primary Health Care system, so that their specialist training will be brought to bear on the system in the state.
On the issue of what role traditional birth attendants, TBAs, can play in health care delivery, Oyo-Ita was emphatic that TBAs should be sincere enough and know when to refer patients to health facilities instead of insist on managing situations that eventually get out of hand with fatal consequencies. “In most cases the TBAs are doing what they do for reasons that are not financially isolated. But again, they are others who are competent within limits and we will continue to appeal to them to know where to draw the line so that lives are not unnecessarily lost”, she added.
