The Oyo State government has said it is recruiting 3000 health workers for its primary healthcare centres (PHCs) across the state, in line with its policy of having at least one functional primary healthcare facility in each of the political wards in the state.

In a media briefing at the Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Muideen Olatunji, the Executive Secretary of the Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, said the recruitment was to strengthen and re-strategise primary care service delivery in the state.

Dr Olatunji, flanked by five other management team members of the board, including Dr Olayemi Osoko, Dr Sunday Adewole, Mr Kehinde Olabode, Dr Segun Dauda, and Mrs Olasumbo Azeez at the briefing, declared that the job application portal will be opened in a week to complete the recruitment of health workers it started in 2021.

According to him, “You will recall that we started with the renovation and upgrade of primary healthcare facilities across the 36 political wards; the state government wanted to have at least one functional primary healthcare facility in each of the political wards.

“As of today, we’ve completed more than 200 facilities, and the remaining one in the next few months will surely be completed. In recent times, an additional 264 facilities have been given additional equipment to further upgrade them.

“But no matter how much upgrading we do or infrastructural re-engineering we do, if there are no human resources that will make it functional, it will amount to nothing.

“In the light of this, the government is commencing recruitment into the primary care facilities across the 33 local government areas. We started this process in 2021. But now the governor has directed that the process that we started in 2021 be completed.

“When we opened the job application portal, we requested that people who have applied should go back to that portal a week from now to be able to check and know those of them that will be invited for CBT examinations.

“We are going to recruit about 3,000 out of the 16,035 that applied on our job portal application. We hope that, as soon as possible, in less than two months, all these examinations will be completed.

“So, this recruitment into the PHC system is a way of strengthening and regulating the primary care system and being able to re-strategise primary care service delivery in the state”.

“In over 20 years, there has not been any meaningful recruitment into the primary care sector. This is the first time in almost two decades that we are recruiting into the primary care system.

And, with the promise of the governor, it’s a continuous process that we hope to do until we fill the health work force gap.” (Nigerian Tribune)

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