CapacityPlus pays tuition for 1200 nurses

CapacityPlus is to pay tuition for 1200 student nurses and midwives from 54 nursing and midwifery schools this year—an increase over the 865 students who benefited from its scholarship last year—in hopes of expanding Nigeria’s human resource for health. The scholarship covers tuition for final-year studies and registration for hospital examinations, a condition for a second tranche of support, targeting […]

CapacityPlus is to pay tuition for 1200 student nurses and midwives from 54 nursing and midwifery schools this year—an increase over the 865 students who benefited from its scholarship last year—in hopes of expanding Nigeria’s human resource for health.

The scholarship covers tuition for final-year studies and registration for hospital examinations, a condition for a second tranche of support, targeting indigent students.

At the scholarship awards in Abuja, Malik Jaffer, CapacityPlus deputy director for health systems strengthening and innovation in Washington where the selection was done based on questionnaire sent out to schools, said the project was working to “ensure health workers have the tools, support and training they need to provide communities they
serve with the best services.”

Samuel Ngobua, chief of party for CapacityPlus, a project of Intrahealth International, funded by USAID, said the project was also working on procuring direct institutional support for 11 health training institutions from six priority states.

The support includes database of human resource for health, workforce development and tracking, and information systems to manage and retain human resource.

World Health Organisation representative, Dr Andrew Mbewe, said Nigeria was justifiably concerned about its human resource for health.

“Health workers make or break what happens in the health sector at whatever level, and therefore building their capacity is a noble cause,” he said.

The National Association of Nurses and Midwives urged for measures to motivate and retain trained professionals, rather than lose them to migrations outside the country.