In a bid to check the shortfall in the nation's health sector, the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), Akwa Ibom State, has so far trained over 250 community health workers, the Chief Medical Director of the health institution, Professor Etete Peters, has said.
Peters, who addressed the third (3rd) convocation and 4th (fourth) matriculation ceremonies of the Community Health officers of the Health Information Training School of the Teaching Hospital, raised the alarm that currently there was a very serious global shortage of human resources in the health sector.
According to him, there is an urgent need to devise strategies to address the issue, explaining that there were 57 countries including Nigeria with critical shortage of healthcare workers, with a deficit of 2.4 million.
He said the role community health workers played in increasing access to essential quality health services in the context of primary Health care and Universal Health Coverage cannot be over emphasized.