The West African College of Physicians, Nigerian chapter, has said Nigerian governors should be held responsible for poor health care delivery in the country. The group of physicians, who spoke through their National Chairman and college Vice President, Abel Onunu, alleged that state and local governments had abandoned the funding of the health sector to the Federal Government. Onunu stated this while speaking with journalists shortly after the college’s 43rd Annual General and Scientific Meeting held in Abeokuta.

 

The national chairman said, “One of the key things that came out in the conference is that it seems the state governments have not been investing enough in the health care system in the state. A lot of the burden is on the head of the Federal Government alone.

“The decision we made at this meeting is that the state governors need to allocate more resources to health care in their states and we believe this would go down to the grass roots and make the people in the neglected area to benefit from health care service of the government.”

 

Onunu said the only solution to the brain drain in the sector was for the state governments to start employing more health personnel with good remuneration.

 

He added, “So far, it is the Federal Government that is the biggest employer of medical personnel.  We want the state governments to start employing health personnel, not just doctors, but nurses and pharmacists, among others, so that they can remain in the country. “The other major decision we took was that the funding for training is not enough, governments need to fund the post-graduate medical college.

 

“We also identified that there was a huge gap in health care governance in the country; we need to put facilities in place to strengthen health care governance in Nigeria.” In her remarks, the Chairman of Board of Trustees of the WACP, Aderonke Olumide, described Nigeria as one of the countries with the poorest health service delivery.