USAID-IHP partners Ebonyi Govt to Implement TSTS Policy For Effective, Efficient Healthcare Delivery
By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
In a bid to achieve efficient availability of human resources for effective health care service delivery, the Ebonyi State Ministry of Health has expressed readiness to adopt the Task Shifting and Task Sharing (TSTS) policy in the state.
This disclosure was made by the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Daniel Umezurike, during a one day USAID-IHP funded Task Shifting and Task Sharing (TSTS) policy validation meeting held in collaboration with Ebonyi State Ministry of Health & Ebonyi State Primary Health Care Development Agency at Osborne La palm hotel in Abakaliki, on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022.
Umezurike Said that the meeting which is aimed at validating the draft domesticated Task -Shifting/Task-Sharing policy for essential Health Care services in Ebonyi State Primary Health Care system will tackle the shortage of manpower and boost the workforce especially in the hinterlands.
The commissioner who was represented by the Director of public health, Hyacinth Ebenyi, stated that the ministry was working with other relevant agencies to adopt a working document/policy by the state which will promote a rational redistribution of tasks among health workforce teams to achieve more efficient use of the available human resources in the health sector.
He said “the policy will help workers who have not ordinarily gone for any course in certain areas but have been with people who have the knowledge and skill, and have been working with them can now be skilled enough to carry some of those processes by way of trying to help us.”
A Participant at the event, Mr. Alegu Leonard, who spoke to The VOICE said that the domestication of the policy in the state will address the challenges faced during primary health care delivery.
Alegu said, “ Ebonyi state doesn’t have adequate staff for our health centres in the state to deliver maximum services, because of that, since we cannot employ for now, we have to distribute our staff and staffers in a way that those that are available will be able to take up those services and attend to patients and clients.
Also, the Director of medical laboratory services, Ministry of Health, Mr. Amah U. Amah said “We are here to domesticated Task shifting and task sharing in our ministry especially ministry of health and hospital management board including that of primary health agency.
We have shortage of manpower in the health department, we don’t want a situation where if you’re employed as a nurse, you’ll say you’re just doing nursing work, so when there’s an emergency for one to be tested for one ailment or the other, you say no, it’s not my duty.
So, that is why we want to domesticated that policy. It started in 2014 but Ebonyi State has not adopted it and that’s why we are moving forward to adopt and domesticated it so that if you don’t know how to perform a laboratory test, someone who is skilled in it will now teach you so that that task can be shifted” he stated
