26th November, 2023
By Jethro Ibileke
A governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in next year’s election, Barr. Anselm Ojezua, has advocated the use of scholarships, bursaries, and other incentives to stop the brain drain in the health sector.
He stated this weekend when he paid a visit to members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), at their secretariat in Benin City.
Ojezua, who served as Commissioner for Information during the government of former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, expressed concern over the huge cost of healthcare in the country.
He noted that an alarming number of doctors and nurses are moving out to other countries because of the condition of service, which he said was largely due to poor remuneration.
He assured that if elected governor next year, his administration would put in place policies that would not only improve on the present healthcare delivery system in the state, but that would make the sector attractive such that players therein would not want to leave the state to go abroad.
According to him, “I am a beneficiary of bursary, I enjoyed bursary when I was in the University of Nigeria.
“I am concerned about health. The cost of access to health is unbelievably high. If those of us who consider ourselves privileged are beginning to bend under the cost of access to health, what about the man on the street, especially the elderly?
“The challenge is that medical personnel is depleting by the day. A lot of doctors and nurses are moving out every day to other countries because of the condition of service. If you go to our health facilities today, my brother, you will cry.
“The situation is terrible, we have to find a way to devise means of generating more medical personnel as well as encouraging them to stay.
“If we cannot offer them better conditions than is currently available, at least we may be to throw in some incentives by way of scholarships.
“To every scholarship, there is a corresponding duty that the person will stay back, serve the state for a number of years before he can go, and hopefully, by the time is over, another set of beneficiaries would have come that we can look at to ensure that we have sufficient medical personnel in our hospitals and health centres in all places,” Ojezua said.
To further improve on the healthcare delivery system, the governorship aspirant called for the education of the masses on the state-sponsored health scheme, noting that “a lot of people don’t know about it, a lot don’t believe in it.”
On the issue of security, Ojezua, who noted that the past and current administrations had done much, hinted that for effective security arrangement, attention must be given to local security architectures.
“I know that a lot of work has been done. I am one of those who believe that no security can be as effective as local security, which brings us to this issue of state police.
I am one of those who believe that state police are essential, and it is imperative, but until that is constitutionally made possible, whatever arrangements that already have been made can be improved upon,” he said.