There are a lot of problems affecting the delivery of health care service in the Country such as inadequate infrastructure, lack of essential equipments and drugs and in adequate workforce. The health workforce challenges have been compounded by inaccurate data for planning. The data available are fragmented, inconsistent, incomparable and kept by various organizations such as the Federal ministry, regulatory bodies, health facilities and training institutions. The study determined accuracy of oral health workforce data in the Country.
Method:
The total oral health workforce in the Country was surveyed through cross sectional study; data from health facilities and training institutions, ministry of health, regulatory body and relevant documents were collected.
Result: There was inconsistent and incomparable data in all the data collated. The data from the Ministry of Health was not same as that from the Medical and Dental Council, Dental Association, Dental Therapist Board and various health facilities.
Conclusion: The Country has critical challenges in meeting the health needs of the populace, one of which is lack of accurate, current and harmonized data on the workforce. There is a need for health workforce information system that is comprehensive, complete, standardized, accurate and harnessed from the time of employment or entry in training to time of retirement and graduation. The data should take into account registered health workforce personnel who are retired, dead, lost to brain drain, political and administrative positions as to have correct data on active practicing health workforce which will help in accurate planning for effective interventions.