By NAKUBIANA SHABONGO –
GOVERNMENT has allocated K63 million towards the recruitment of more than 2,400 health workers to mitigate the deficit of workers in the health sector.
Government would place its focus on the recruitment of nurses, doctors and paramedics among others to meet the challenge.
Health Deputy Minister, Chitalu Chilufya, said the recruitment for the year 2015 would strengthen service delivery.

. Dr Chilufya

Dr Chilufya said the Ministry of Health would in the next few weeks start the recruitment process in an effort to ensure quality health services were delivered to citizens throughout the country.
The sector had been faced with the challenge of inadequate human resource that needed to be promptly addressed.
Dr Chilufya said in an interview that although Government was embarking on a massive recruitment drive, more still needed to be done to reach the optimal requirements.
Government’s priority was to recruit more health professionals and send them to the rural communities, as the shortage of staff in such places was acute.
He said the shortage in the rural areas negatively impacted on service delivery. “Government is concerned with the insufficient number of health care givers in the rural areas and this is where most of the recruitment will be done. We are recruiting from around the country and we are also going to ensure that the health facilities are manned by qualified personnel,” he said.
Dr Chilufya said this would help enhance child survival, reduce maternal deaths, ease access and improve health care among various things.
“The situation in the rural areas is quite grave; a hospital can have one doctor and very few nurses to attend to a certain population. We are going to improve on this,” he added.