Save the Children International (SCI), an international non-governmental organisation, has urged the Kaduna state government to include nutritionists in its planned 3,059 health workers recruitment.
The Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr Paul Dogo, recently announced that Governor Nasir el-Rufa’I has approved recruitment of 3,059 health workers to bridge the manpower gap in the health sector.
However, SCI Nutrition Advocacy Adviser, Malam Isah Ibrahim, said the planned recruitment did not include nutritionist. Ibrahim, who lamented that there were currently only 55 nutritionists in the state’s health sector, with 49 in 26 out of 32 secondary health facilities in the state, want the anomaly addressed.
“There are only four nutritionists in four local government headquarters, namely Chikun, Kajuru, Zaria and Kagarko local government areas out of the 23 LGAs in the state. There are only two nutritionists at the state’s Primary Healthcare Development Agency. This is grossly inadequate, considering the huge number of malnourished children in the state, none of the 255 PHCs across the 255 wards in the state has a nutritionist.
“There is an urgent need for more professional nutritionist, if possible, in every health facility in the state to provide professional nutrition services in health facilities across the state. It is on this note that the organisation is pleading with the state government to include nutritionists in its planned recruitment of health workers to take nutrition services to the grassroots,” Ibrahim said.
The nutrition advocacy adviser also called for improved budgetary provision, release and cash backing for nutrition specific and sensitive interventions, noting that budgetary allocation for the health sector and nutrition in particular has remained very low over the years with marginal increase in recent times.
“Only N17.1 billion, representing 8.5 per cent of the total budget of N200.7 billion in 2015 was allocated to the health sector of which nutrition got zero allocation. In 2016, the allocation dropped from N17.1 billion to N12.9 billion, representing 7.5 per cent of the total budget of N172.3 billion. Again, there was no allocation for nutrition.
“However, in 2017, nutrition, for the first time got 0.5 per cent of the total health budget of N24.8 billion, representing 11.5 per cent of the total budget of N214.9 billion. The allocation for nutrition dropped from 0.5 per cent in 2017 to 0.3 per cent in 2018 out of the total health budget of N34.7 billion, representing 16 per cent of the total budget of N216.7 billion for the year,” he said.
Ibrahim stated that the government and its development partners had invested huge resources to curb the scourge of malnutrition but with minimal success due to inadequate resources. He said that improved budgetary allocation for nutrition interventions would go a long way in avoiding preventable deaths of children under five years from malnutrition.
