By Aliyu Dangida & Tina Akannam
DUTSE — Jigawa State Government is to recruit 400 additional health workers to be posted  as health facilitators across the state.

This is coming as the state Governor, Sule Lamido, yesterday disbursed N189 million to 36 Fadama 111 associations in the state.

The state’s Head of Service, Alhaji Mustapha Aminu, announced the recruitment plans by the government at the launching of the state’s Human Resources for Health, HRH, Policy and Strategic Plan in Dutse, the state capital.

He said the government was not unaware of the dearth health workers, adding however that  the recruitment of qualified health personnel had been on-going, as  approval was also given for the employment of 218 health workers last year.

Alhaji  Aminu further said that the government had decided to develop its own policy and strategic plan giving consideration to their traditional, religious and cultural peculiarities.

He explained that provision of pro- poor healthcare service had been a priority since the inception of the administration, adding that government had always provided the enabling environment for collaboration and partnership support with national and international health and other related organizations.

According to him, financial support for training and re-training were continuously being given by the state government to develop the capacities of health workers in all fields, pointing out that issues relating to gender, manpower requirements in terms of quality were equally addressed in the HRH documents.

However, Governor Lamido who was represented by the speaker of the state House of Assembly,   Mr Adamu Ahmed  at Fadama programme  said his administration would continue to give priority to local governments in the state, adding that the payment of counterpart fund was to ensure smooth implementation of the programme.