Senior doctors and dentists have accused federal government of planning to proscribe the doctors’ union in efforts to blackmail doctors into ending a strike they started July 1, a charge the government has denied.
Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria said “unnamed government officials have leaked to the press” that government planned to proscribe the Nigerian Medical Association.
MDCAN president, Dr Steven Oluwale, said the government move would negatively affect already fragile situation in the health sector, which has been severely by the strike now entering its fifth week.Proscribing the union could see military deployed to guard medical institutions, while military and paramilitary medical professionals renders services in the meantime, he said.
It would also mean privatising all public health institutions, enforcing a no-work-no-pay policy, protecting doctors who drop the strike and hiring new ones.
“Propositions of agents of government should deeply worry anyone fairly familiar with the organisation of multi-tier health services for a country,” said Oluwale in a statement.
“Before the NMA declared the strike the MDCAN implored government to look professionally, but not politically at all the issues. Unfortunately there is little evidence that such had been done.
"Are there no laws that establish the tertiary health institutions? Will privatisation of Teaching Hospitals fulfil the objectives for which they were established? Private hospitals are for profit rather than for training and research. Will they serve the primary functions as defined in the Acts that established the hospitals?
"Will the Ministry of Health find suitable replacement for all specialities in Teaching Hospitals, from unemployed doctors and retired doctors? Will the Ministry of Health reconstitute the entire health system even if it is intended that foreign doctors will be imported? The assumption that MDCAN members, who are currently restrained by Court order, will capitulate is erroneous."
But the health ministry has denied any intention to by the federal government to ban NMA.
Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu’s special media adviser Dan Nwomeh said the effort of the government is to ensure that the issues behind the strike action were resolved amicably.
He insisted government had fulfilled part of its bargain with doctors and expected them to call off their industrial.
Source: Daily Trust
Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria said “unnamed government officials have leaked to the press” that government planned to proscribe the Nigerian Medical Association.
MDCAN president, Dr Steven Oluwale, said the government move would negatively affect already fragile situation in the health sector, which has been severely by the strike now entering its fifth week.Proscribing the union could see military deployed to guard medical institutions, while military and paramilitary medical professionals renders services in the meantime, he said.
It would also mean privatising all public health institutions, enforcing a no-work-no-pay policy, protecting doctors who drop the strike and hiring new ones.
“Propositions of agents of government should deeply worry anyone fairly familiar with the organisation of multi-tier health services for a country,” said Oluwale in a statement.
“Before the NMA declared the strike the MDCAN implored government to look professionally, but not politically at all the issues. Unfortunately there is little evidence that such had been done.
"Are there no laws that establish the tertiary health institutions? Will privatisation of Teaching Hospitals fulfil the objectives for which they were established? Private hospitals are for profit rather than for training and research. Will they serve the primary functions as defined in the Acts that established the hospitals?
"Will the Ministry of Health find suitable replacement for all specialities in Teaching Hospitals, from unemployed doctors and retired doctors? Will the Ministry of Health reconstitute the entire health system even if it is intended that foreign doctors will be imported? The assumption that MDCAN members, who are currently restrained by Court order, will capitulate is erroneous."
But the health ministry has denied any intention to by the federal government to ban NMA.
Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu’s special media adviser Dan Nwomeh said the effort of the government is to ensure that the issues behind the strike action were resolved amicably.
He insisted government had fulfilled part of its bargain with doctors and expected them to call off their industrial.
Source: Daily Trust
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