Stakeholders in the health sector have called for increased and sustainable funding, improved coordination and stronger institutional support for the  community health workforce to enhance access to primary healthcare services.

They made the call at a National Consultation on Advancing Nigeria’s Community Health Workforce Agenda, organised by CARE International in Nigeria in collaboration with stakeholders in the health sector.

Country Director, CARE International, Nigeria in Nigeria, Dr. Hussaini Abdu noted that although community health workers play significant  role in providing healthcare services to  vulnerable populations but more often than not they are faced with limited recognition, inconsistent remuneration, fragmented supervision and uncertain career pathways.

He noted that countries that had deliberately invested in their community health workforce had recorded improvements in maternal and child survival, disease surveillance and health system resilience during emergencies.

Dr Abdul noted that although Nigeria has developed policy frameworks and implemented programmes across states, but the community health workforce agenda remains under-financed, under-institutionalised and insufficiently harmonised.

 He decried that the community health workforce is plagued with inconsistent, defined Cadres, over reliance on donor funding, uneven  supervision, data systems and referral linkages.

Abdu said the consultation was aimed at supporting the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to develop a coherent and evidence-based community health workforce agenda as part of efforts to strengthen human resources for health.

He said the meeting would focus on building stakeholder consensus on priorities and investments, reviewing existing policies and implementation gaps, and identifying sustainable financing and policy mechanisms for institutionalising and scaling up the community health workforce.

The Director and Head of Health Planning, Research and Statistics, Federal Ministry of Health and  Social Welfare , Dr. John Ovuoraye  said government supported the consultation because improving the country’s health workforce required the collective efforts of all stakeholders.

Ovuoraye said the government was not only concerned about health workers in tertiary and secondary facilities but also those providing services at primary healthcare centres and community health posts.

While acknowledging  that country did not yet have enough community health workers to meet its needs, he identified brain drain and insecurity as some of the challenges affecting the availability and deployment of health workers, noting that the closure of health posts in insecure areas had also deprived communities of essential healthcare services.

According to him, the government is working to expand functional primary healthcare facilities from about 8,000 to more than 16,000 while strengthening services in internally displaced persons’ camps, adding  that government was also using incentives, including capitation and support for emergency services, to make primary healthcare facilities more accessible and attractive to Nigerians.

Also speaking, CARE International in Nigeria’s Health Sector Lead, Dr. Amina Ahmed Abdullahi, said community health workers constituted the grassroots layer of Nigeria’s health system and were often the first point of contact between vulnerable communities and healthcare services.

She said the consultation brought together representatives of government ministries and agencies, development and implementing partners, donors, civil society organisations, private sector, academia and other stakeholders to develop a common approach to strengthening the workforce.

Abdullahi said community health workers were critical to expanding access to essential primary healthcare services, particularly in fragile and underserved communities.

She identified financing as a major challenge, saying shrinking resources required stakeholders to mobilise funding and work towards a common plan.

She said the Federal Government had taken steps to harmonise the community health workforce, which had historically been fragmented by vertical programmes operated by different organisations.

According to her, the fragmentation resulted in different training curricula, payment structures and supervision systems for community health workers.

She said efforts were now being made to establish a more harmonised system with common training, payment and deployment frameworks.