Ali Pate to health workers: Expect adjustment in wages

Professor Ali Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, has promised health workers in the country adjustment in their wages very soon.

Pate made this promise on Channels Television’s May 29 Special programme on the first anniversary of President Bola Tinubu.

Asked if there will be a significant increase in the salary of health workers soon, Pate said: “I think in the context of compensation for workers in Nigeria, we should expect an adjustment.”

Health workers in Nigeria have several times complained of low wages and non-payment of their hazard allowance among others, leading to industrial actions creating instability in the nation’s health sector in many occasions.

As a result of these issues, many of Nigeria’s health professionals have migrated to other countries.

Speaking on the brain drain in the health sector, however, the minister said that Tinubu’s administration had taken some decisive policy steps which are now addressing the problem.

According to him, some of the professionals who have left for greener pastures are now seeking to return to the country.

“We increased the quota for the training of health workers, we doubled it. It is going to take a few years for the training to increase so that you can see the impact; that is a decisive policy step.

“Now, in terms of recruitment through the primary health system, 2,497 nurses, midwives, and doctors have been deployed in our primary healthcare centres under this one year.

“Now, there are trends that we have also seen of many of our professionals trying to come back to Nigeria to work in the private sector and also contribute in the public sector.

“There are several of them in the state government and some of them in the private sector. It is ongoing and we should continue,” he disclosed.