The Jigawa Government says it will train 150 nurses and employ 60 medical doctors in 2016 to address the shortage of medical personnel in the hospitals in the state.

Gov. Badaru Abubakar, who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Dutse, said that the government would establish another school of nursing in Hadejia.

Abubakar said that the government decided to take those steps in order to enhance the quality of healthcare in the state.

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“What we have discovered in the health sector is an acute shortage of medical personnel – nurses, midwives and doctors.

So we plan to train 150 nurses and 60 doctors abroad next year; also, we plan to have another school of nursing in Hadejia.

So that in a short period of time, we can have between 400 and 500 nurses churned out from different schools here and the ones that we will train abroad to take care of the acute shortage of health personnel.’’

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Abubakar said it was in order to address those challenges that the state government allocated N20 billion to the health sector in the 2016 budget.

He said that part of the allocation would be used to provide pieces of equipment and infrastructure at the hospitals in the state.

According to him, the government has taken huge steps to improve the standard and operations of the existing School of Nursing in Birnin Kudu and the College of Health Technology in Jahun.

The governor said that his administration was working closely with the medical and dental council to recruit additional doctors from abroad to increase the number of doctors at the hospitals.

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“We are working with the medical and dental council to help us source quality doctors from abroad and that is the major investment we want to do in the health sector because it is the major challenge.

“If you provide medicine, infrastructure, and equipment and there is no doctor it is useless; it is not going to work.

So the major focus this year is getting the right personnel, while we work hand-in-hand to improve the infrastructure and the equipment of the hospitals.”

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According to him, the state government has worked out modalities to provide the hospitals with modern equipment and infrastructure

He added that new clinics would also be established in communities and furnished with modern equipment “to enhance the quality of healthcare to the people’’.

“You need to have healthy people to transform agriculture and diversify the economy,” he said. (NAN)