By Kingsley Agim
The Cross River State Government has held a comprehensive review and validation of its Health Workforce Information and Profile for 2025. This initiative, a key step in the ongoing health sector reforms, kicked off with a two-day technical workshop held from July 21 to 22 at Dannic Hotel, Calabar.
Declaring the workshop open on behalf of the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Henry Egbe Ayuk, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Rt. Hon. Ekpo Ekpo Bassey, underscored the strategic relevance of the exercise. He described the session as vital for bringing together key stakeholders to review analyzed data and validate the state’s workforce profile, particularly human resources for health, which he called a cornerstone of health system strengthening.
“It is the belief of this administration that we need to strengthen and improve our healthcare services,” he said. “We will not be able to achieve that without ensuring we have sufficient human resources to deliver effective healthcare.”
He acknowledged the support of the Federal Ministry of Health, the Cross River State Ministry of Health, and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their roles in generating and validating the workforce data. He also commended Governor Bassey Otu for approving the recruitment of various healthcare professionals, including nurses, doctors, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and community health workers, as part of efforts to guarantee quality healthcare delivery across the state.
In his welcome remarks, the Director of Health Planning, Research, and Statistics, Mr. Casmir Ugbong, welcomed participants drawn from local government areas and secondary facilities across the state. These included Human Resource for Health (HRH) focal persons, as well as provosts from the Colleges of Nursing in Itigidi, Ogoja, and Obudu. He urged all attendees to take the exercise seriously, describing it as a critical intervention aligned with federal and state efforts to strengthen the health system.
Also speaking, the Director of Human Resource for Health, Hon. Chris Ushuasung, outlined the core objectives of the workshop. These included reviewing and validating workforce data submitted from health facilities and LGAs for accuracy and consistency, finalizing the Cross River State Health Workforce Profile for 2025 to reflect current realities, and identifying existing gaps such as workforce shortages, imbalances, or maldistribution. The validated data, he explained, would form a credible basis for HRH forecasting, strategic planning, budgeting, and equitable deployment.
The two-day workshop featured presentations of the draft Health Workforce Profile, group reviews of submitted data, plenary discussions, feedback sessions from HRH focal persons, gap analysis across facilities, and the presentation of an updated profile for validation. Participants also benefited from technical assistance and guidance provided by the WHO team on ground.
As part of the next steps, HRH focal persons have been tasked with liaising with their respective facilities and LGAs to immediately address any identified gaps in data collection to ensure accuracy and completeness. They are also to display the generated staff list or nominal roll for claims and objections within seven days. Additionally, all cadres of health staff, including those previously omitted, must ensure their details are correctly entered into the health workforce profile.
The validation exercise marks a pivotal moment in the operationalization of the Cross River State Health Workforce Registry, aligning with Governor Bassey Otu’s broader vision for a data-driven, resilient, and people-centered healthcare system.
