NIGERIAN HEALTH MINISTER PROF. ADEWOLE SPEAKS ON HEALTH CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA

Isaac Adewole, Minister of Health
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In this exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES’ Oluwatoyosi Olawande and Aminu Adamu, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Issac Adewole, speaks extensively on various issues and developments in the health sector, including the performance of the 2016 budget in the sector and what to expect going forward.
PT: What is the ministry doing to forestall the strike threat by resident doctors?
ADEWOLE: We have met, and we are addressing the issues and a letter is going from the Permanent Secretary to the President of the National Association of Resident Doctors about what we have done on all the issues. Practically all the things have been looked into, some are key issues that are under our purview, some are key issues that will have no control over.
PT: What about the issue of their unpaid salaries?
ADEWOLE: I spoke to the Minister of Finance and Mr. President took a virement request to the National Assembly. It has been approved. The issue of November, December salary will be taken care of in the next few days, so that is the key element of their request.
PT: They spoke of worsening health indices
ADEWOLE: That is not true, that is very unscientific. I would have expected them to tell me the indices that have worsened since we came on board; none. You don’t even do indices every year, you do indices every 3 years, every 5 years. The next demographic and health survey in Nigeria is due in 2018. The last one was 2013, so how did anybody come with worsening health indices?

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PT: They complained about dilapidated infrastructures in health institutions in the country.


ADEWOLE: That is also not true, we are working hard. If you look at the 2017 budget, there is a lump sum of money that we put there, about N12 billion, N11.7 billion of that is for upgrade of tertiary centres. And what we are doing is to partner with the sovereign investment authority to get some private sector money together so that we can grow the money and make sure we work on our health facilities.
PT: You heard about the recent unfortunate death of a corps member at an NYSC camp?
ADEWOLE: NYSC is not under us but immediately the death occurred, I called the Director-General and I said DG, I am writing to all the federal health institutions to look after your corps members. In addition, Mr. President has directed that we should bring a memo to the Federal Executive Council enrolling Youth Corpers in National Health Insurance.
PT: Still on resident doctors, they said their colleagues have not been paid salaries for 3 months in Akwa Ibom State.
ADEWOLE: The thing is that there is a problem across the country. The last time we spoke with Mr. President, I think about 24 states or so have not been able to pay salaries regularly. It’s a general problem.
PT: There is also the point about improper placement of doctors on entry point and non adjustment of their salary structure.
ADEWOLE: That is not true. Doctors are on CONMESS; CONMESS 1 to 7. Doctors who come back from NYSC actually start on CONMESS 2. They woke up and said that the entry point should be on CONHESS 9 and you are not on CONHESS.
That is what the Chairman of the Salaries and Wages Commission said, that if you don’t want your salary, say so and move to another one. You cannot stay in a salary scale and say they should give you entry point of another one.
Sometimes when your constituency fights, you ask them, do they really know what they are talking about? What you should ask for is that, maybe the entry point of your own, if you think it should be higher, we can work on that, ask us to look at it, but don’t say they must give you the beginning.

SOURCE:  PREMIUM TIMES