Staffing of health personnel in health facilities: MINFOPRA reassures young Parliamentarians.

In a plenary sitting of young parliamentarians at the National Assembly today 9th February 2023, Minister Joseph LE edified the young parliamentarians on the efforts that have been employed by the Ministry of the Public Service and Administrative Reform to improve the numbers of  health workers in all localities  of Cameroon.

Answering the question posed by the young parliamentarian Augustine AROGA of the Centre region, Minister Joseph LE, acknowledged that there's  a significant shortage of medical personnel in our health facilities and it is expected that all those recruited should emerge from the training institutions in the country but there are important things that pose as challenges to achieving this necessity.

Amongst others,   budgetary constraints as well as the restrictive and precautionary methods of recruitment in the public service makes it impossible to recruit a massive number of trained personnel.

Moreover,  the deadlock of having health personnel who after being recruited,  desert their working sites in the hinterlands for greener pastures abroad is also a real challenge MINFOPRA is working on solving.

Worthy of note is the fact that Minister LE accompanied by a delegation of his close collaborators was talking on the occasion of the 6th appearance of the parliamentary network "esperance Jeunesse" for the promotion of public policies and actions in favour of youth and children before the National Assembly chaired by honourable Hilarion ETONG, 1st Vice President of the National Assembly, representative of the President of the National Assembly, Cavaye YEGUIE DJIBRIL.

According to Minister LE, statistics from existing health facilities show that there is a shortage of 68000  personnel including 53000 health workers ( general practitioners, senior nurses, nurses, nursing assistants, health technicians, midwives, just to name but these). Despite these figures, he however  pointed out that from 2018 to 2022 over 2 211 health personnel have been recruited and deployed to the Ministry of health.

At the close of his speech, Minister LE mentioned that the aforementioned figures  are some signs of hope on which  the youths should rest  upon and trust in the actions government is taking to address their concerns.

Daisy Diane Mafor, Communication Unit/MINFOPRA