The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has advised the federal government to “resist the temptation of enforcing ‘No work, no pay’ rule on medical doctors instead of addressing issues of the welfare of the less than 25,000 medical doctors practicing in the country.
Addressing journalists Sunday in Abuja, after a Thanksgiving Mass to kick-start the 2023 NMA-FCT week programme, the chairman of NMA, FCT chapter, Dr. Charles Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi, said thousands of doctors have left the country to practice abroad because of poor welfare and obsolete equipment.
He said the few doctors that agreed to stay and attend to over 230 million Nigerians are patriotic and should be encouraged, instead of being threatened by the federal government for demanding for what should be theirs by right.
Dr. Ugwuanyi commiserated with the Lagos state chapter of NMA on the demise of a medical doctor, Vwaere Diaso, in an avoidable elevator accident and urged the Lagos state government to investigate the incident to forestall future occurrence.
He said: “We are indeed not happy with the poor working condition, which resulted in the death of Dr Vwaere Diaso, a youngster with a very bright future. We are calling on relevant authorities at various levels, especially hospitals, to take the safety of the work environment seriously. On that note, we implore all our members across the country to take this message to different levels of government.
“We are having a very difficult challenge in the medical sector where the few doctors left in the country are receiving lots of threats from government, including clamping down on their payment; simply for coming out to ask for their dues, which government had promised a long time, but has not been able to fulfill.
“We are using this opportunity to advise the government not to take steps that will further worsen the precarious situation of medical service delivery in this country. Let me take you down some statistics. If you look at the medical registry, we have
more than 110,000 doctors who have been found registration worthy, but as at April 2022, we had just less than 36,000 that renewed their practicing licences.
“As I speak with you, we have less than 25,000 that have registered and practising in this country today. So, this measure that the government is taking now, they should look at it critically because it is not going to do the country any good. It will lead to further complications, so government should soft pedal in what they are trying to do because it will hurt the system.”