No fewer than 518 new health professionals will join Ahmadu Bello University Teaching University (ABUTH) Zaria to mitigate the negative impact of `japa syndrome’ and strengthen healthcare delivery services at the hospital.

Prof. Ahmed Umdagas, Chief Medical Director of the hospital, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Zaria.

He stated that the hospital has a shortage of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers caused by the migration of healthcare professionals abroad, known as ‘japa syndrome’.

Umdagas said the hospital had received over 7,500 applications at the expiration of the vacancy advertisement. However, the CMD said the approval we got was for 518 officers.

“We have completed the exercise and by the first quarter of 2025, the hospital will have additional 518 staff towards improving the human resources for health in the hospital.

“We believe that injecting this cohort of staff would greatly strengthen health outcomes in the facility,’’ the CMD said.

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Umdagas said in the area of manpower development, over 460 staff of the hospital received training, both local and international, towards improving health outcomes; stressing that such training will improve in 2025.

He added that recently, the ITF was in the hospital where it trained staff members on better ways of improving patient care.

Similarly the CMD said the facility was working with key stakeholders to strengthen its partnership and collaborations with key stakeholders to enhance health outcomes.

He explained that one of such collaborations was with the University of Miami, USA on the treatment of ovarian cancer; under the research initiative would be conducted on 70 patients globally.

“Of the 70 patients ABUTH would assess 20 patients, 10 would be done at Bahamas and remaining 40 would be assessed at the University of Miami,’’ Umdagas said.

The Star