Friday, 17 February 2012

COMPETENT HEALTH PERSONNEL CRITICAL TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT-CHIKUSU


Government says a competent and motivated health workforce has the potential to contribute meaningfully to the social and economic development of the country.
Deputy Minister of Health Patrick Chikusu said government will do everything possible to motivate the health personnel in the country.
Dr. Chikusu said it was in this vein that the Patriotic Front (PF) government has increased the budgetary allocation to the health sector in the 2012 national budget in order to motivate health workers.
He said government was also working on modalities of paying all the outstanding arrears owed to the health personnel in the country.
The Deputy Minister said this when he addressed health workers at Kasama General Hospital in Kasama recently.
And Dr. Chikusu has disclosed that government will this year employ a total of 2, 500 health personnel countrywide to beef up the number of health staff in the country.
Dr. Chikusu further said government has also reintroduced in-service training so that the heath sector can have competent and specialized personnel to attend to specific diseases in all health centres across the country.
The Deputy Minister further said the retention of health personnel both from within the country and abroad will be made practical due to government’s seriousness to address the needs of all health personnel in the country.
Meanwhile, Dr. Chikusu stressed that no untrained health personnel will be allowed to attend to patients.
He said it is unprofessional for any unqualified health personnel to administer health care services to patients saying the trend poses health risks to the citizenry.
Dr. Chikusu was on a familiarisation tour of health infrastructure in Northern Province in an effort to make health personnel realign themselves to the heath care policy of the new Patriotic Front government.
ZANIS

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