The Bayelsa State Government has announced plans to deploy 19 doctors, 210 nurses and midwives, 185 pharmacy technicians and about 50 laboratory technicians to primary healthcare centres across the state to strengthen clinical services at the grassroots.
State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Seiyefa Brisibe, disclosed this on Friday during a training organised by the Health Emergency Initiative (HEI), sponsored by FIRST E&P under its First Respondent Training and Medical Intervention Programme.
“We are deploying 19 doctors, 210 nurses and midwives, 185 pharmacy technicians and about 50 laboratory medical technicians to strengthen the clinical component of our primary healthcare centres,” Brisibe said.
He explained the move targets a gap in clinical care, noting primary healthcare centres are often run largely by community health extension and environmental health workers. “If you look at the scope, community health workers and environmental health workers will do about public health. So in our primary healthcare centres, where my mother, who stays in the village is going to access first, the clinical component is not strong enough,” he said.
Brisibe said the deployment would make primary healthcare centres more attractive to residents, encourage women to seek professional care during childbirth, and boost patronage through regular doctor visits. “If in a society or a community where there are no doctors and they hear that once in 10 days a medical doctor comes to consult in a place where there is a nurse or a midwife, definitely that day people will come,” he said.
The doctors will be deployed across the state’s 18 local government areas, covering 24 constituencies. Areas with difficult terrain and more constituencies, including Southern Ijaw, Brass and Ekeremor, will each get three doctors, while others will receive two.
Brisibe said recruitment had reached its final stage, with workers expected to begin their assignments within the month. “For anything we do, we try to see that there must be a reason for doing it so that our health outcomes are going to improve,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, FIRST E&P’s Executive Director of Corporate Services, Emmanuel Etomi, said the training was designed to prepare young people to respond during emergencies before professional help arrives. “During a medical emergency, road traffic accident, cardiac arrest, or other life-threatening incident, the difference between life and death can be measured in minutes,” he said.
Etomi disclosed that HEI previously benefited from the 2025 Impact FIRST Grant Programme and is among five inaugural beneficiaries of Impact FIRST: Heritage, a multi-year NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P funding initiative. “This marks a transition from grant-making to long-term partnership. It reflects our confidence in HEI’s leadership, delivery model and ability to create meaningful, measurable impact,” he said.
HEI founder Paschal Achunine said the programme aims to shift bystander behaviour from filming emergencies to actively helping. “Our expectation is that as opposed to the current practice, where people take pictures and videos and put on social media when an emergency happens, we’ll see more proactive response, a robust response from young people,” he said.
He noted that over 30 per cent of deaths in Nigeria occur at the pre-hospital stage, and said HEI has run a post-crash care programme since 2017 with the Federal Road Safety Corps and hospitals, providing up to N100,000 in deposit support for critically injured crash victims.
Achunine also disclosed that HEI has partnered with the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council to integrate emergency health education into the school curriculum. “In the coming months, in the new academic year, we’ll start seeing emergency health education… conducted with practical applications in secondary and primary schools,” he said.
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