Cross River Health MinistCALABAR – The Cross River State Ministry of Health has released official health worker data showing that the state currently has 542 nurses in public hospitals and 97 nurses in primary healthcare facilities, directly contradicting recent claims by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party that the state has only “99 nurses and fewer than 20 doctors.”
In a press statement signed by Kingsley Agim, Information Officer of the ministry, the government described the PDP’s outburst as “misleading” and a “desperate attempt by a failed opposition to distort facts.”
“It is both ironic and laughable that the same PDP which presided over the systematic collapse of Cross River’s healthcare system now pretends to care about the welfare of the people,” the statement read.
The ministry explained that the figures quoted by the PDP factional chairman, Barr. Venatius Ikem, “only reflects staffing data from General Hospital Calabar alone.”
According to the statement, “The truth is that Cross River State currently has 542 nurses in public hospitals and 97 nurses in primary healthcare facilities across the state.”
The ministry further disclosed that in the secondary healthcare system alone, “over 230 new health professionals, including doctors, pharmacists, nurses, laboratory scientists and technicians, have already been recruited by this administration, with recruitment for more doctors still ongoing.”
In the primary healthcare system, the statement added, “more than 500 health workers comprising nurses, midwives, community health extension workers, data managers, pharmacy technicians and laboratory technicians have equally been employed and deployed across the state.”
Kingsley Agim noted that “today, each of the 196 Primary Healthcare Centres across the 196 political wards in Cross River State has a trained midwife or skilled birth attendant, a feat never achieved during the PDP’s 24 years in power. This alone exposes the ignorance and inaccuracy of Barr. Ikem’s claims regarding shortages of health personnel, particularly midwives.”
The statement also addressed allegations of poor welfare for health workers, revealing that under Governor Bassey Otu, “doctors in Cross River State currently enjoy full implementation of 100 percent Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) and earn salaries that compare favourably, and in many cases exceed, what their counterparts receive at the federal and tertiary healthcare levels.”
“Other categories of health workers, including nurses, have also benefited from a 15 percent salary increase which has been consistently implemented by Governor Otu for over a year,” the statement added.
Kingsley Agim further noted that “this 15 percent salary adjustment was a long‑standing demand of health workers throughout the PDP years but was never implemented until the assumption of office by Governor Otu.”
The ministry concluded by urging the PDP to focus on rebuilding its “fractured political relevance” rather than “manufacturing falsehoods against a government that is clearly rebuilding Cross River State from the ruins they created.”
