By; Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi
In it’s drive to revamp it’s health sector and boost the morale of medical officers and health workers generally, the Bauchi state government has approved the implementation of new scheme of service for its health personnel.
The package, according to the state commissioner of health, Dr Sani Mohammed Dambam, include 100 percent upward review implementation of CON-MESS and CONHESS salary scale which will make the healthcare workers in the state to be at par with their colleagues in federal service, even better than them.
Dr. Mohammed Alkali while briefing the press in Bauchi weekend shortly after the State Executive Council meeting said that the new scheme of service included the implementation of promotion of the healthcare workers.
In addition, the commissioner revealed, the state has peculiar allowances which are usually not found in the federal government health scheme that included outside posting allowances introduced to encourage healthcare workers to stay in the underserved communities where their services are most needed.
The commissioner further explained that the approval followed consideration of the recommendations of a special committee set up to assess the financial implications of a new scheme of service for healthcare workers in the state.
According to him, the outcome of the committee’s recommendations was, among others, the 100 per cent upward review of the existing scheme, marking it one of the most significant welfare packages ever approved for the sector in the state.
The decision by the government, commissioner emphasized, was driven by the need to retain skilled medical personnel, improve healthcare delivery, and curb the brain-drain from the state healthcare subsector.
He explained that the hitherto non implementation of the promotion is one of the reasons many of the health workers are either leaving the state or are not being motivated enough and the committee quantified these categories of workers numbered over 2, 000 both at state and local government levels to benefit from this approval
“The Government is going to be paying only genuine healthcare workers, or not only geneing , but those that are also rendering their services. So, we are going to use a machine that will be taking the attendance of workers at the time they arrive to their work stations”.
The commissioner argued that by so doing, some money will be saved and importantly too, those that would be paid will also render their required services to the state government.
Dr. Sani Dambam stated that it was in furtherance of boosting the morale of doctors and healthcare workers that the state government approved to them, access to car and housing loans, to ease their financial burden and improve the quality of their lives
