The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said the government has completed the recruitment of a new batch of 270 healthcare professionals who are being deployed to the Edo State Primary Healthcare Development Agency to complement the government’s efforts at improving access to quality healthcare services to Edo people.
Obaseki, while addressing the newly recruited medical staff at the John Odigie-Oyegun Public Service Academy, in Benin City, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to sustaining the investment in the education and health sectors in the overall interest of the Edo people.
The governor said, “I am glad we are here today. It has been a problem to hire so I told the management of the new agency to send out applications, give confidence to young people, and encourage them to apply as they don’t need to know anybody but just know something to get employed in the civil/public service in the State. I am glad that you had the confidence to apply.
“When we came into office in 2016, it was clear Edo needed reforms because of what we met. We knew it could not take us forward because Edo is a very special State. When we came into office in 2016, it was clear that there is something we needed to do that will set the State for greatness.
“One of them is education and the other is about health. As an administration, all we do is care about our people, as we have a very young population. Almost 70 percent of our population is under the age of 35 years and catering for our people is our number one priority.”
He continued: “We came to the realization and we focused on basic education by reforming the education sector and also focused on primary healthcare to change the face of the health system in Edo. People talk about primary health care and for governments in the past, primary health care means just building something somewhere but to my administration, it’s not about infrastructure and contracts but about the people.
“How do you encourage and attract a new generation of people into the healthcare system? First, we had to redesign the institution to support our primary healthcare offerings. That was why we created the Edo State Primary Healthcare Development Agency.
“Just like in education and Edo SUBEB, we looked for ways to collaborate with the local governments to take away some burden of salaries of healthcare workers at the local government level to the State. We set up this Agency’s funding between state and local government administrations and created a new cadre and new scheme of services for primary healthcare workers where they will not experience delays in salaries.
According to him, “Just like we did with EdoBEST, that is what we want to do with healthcare. We have hired you and will give you the tools to work and put a system in place to continually train you. We are now reinvesting and rebuilding our school of health technology so that you have places to have in-service training. To work in our PHCs centers, you have to be computer literate as all consultation and engagements have to be done digitally.”
Obaseki added, “From day one, we have put in place a pension scheme and life insurance arrangement to enable you to make meaningful careers in the healthcare space. I have the pleasure of welcoming the new hires into the Edo State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, as you are the new brigade that will change our healthcare in Edo State.”
