FG can't stop doctors from private practice, says NMA

   

     The Nigerian Medical Association has come out against a federal government ban from private practice, calling the policy illegal.  The association has also threatened to go on holiday, leaving public hospitals to be run by paramedics if paramedics are being equated with them.

    At a press conference in Ilorin to mark the 2017 Physicians’ ‎week, NMA president Mike Ogirima asked the federal government to come out clear and define what it meant by working hours because according to it, doctors in public hospitals were already working more that the 40 unites required by law.  "The attempt to stop private practice by doctors working in public health institution is against the law of the land. NMA frowns at our members who use the working hours to attend to their private clinics/hospitals. Government should enforce the law by reconstituting the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria MDCN.

     “Government must not dissolve the MDCN without immediate reconstruction, we want it in perpetuity. NMA will work in tandem with the government to discipline erring members subjecting them to MDCN’s disciplinary tribunal which has since being in limbo because of lack of MDCN," he said  The NMA president lamented that in the last two weeks, the NMA had lost six members because they were ‘‘overwhelmed with work overload and had stress related death’’. He said currently doctors in Nigeria were working below the World Health Organisation (WHO)’ s standard which prescribed a ratio of one doctor (1: 600) patients as against one doctor to over to over 200, 000 patients obtainable  in Nigeria.
 
    “By law, doctors are supposed to work for only 40 units, we have doctors working for up to 80 units ,If you want me to work more that 40 units, pay me for more than 40 units. So if you want to  enforce it,  maybe we should start from there,” Ogirima said .  He decried a situation where government at the states and federal level claimed they don’t have  money to employ doctors but embark on ‘‘white elephants projects which some of them may not even complete, it’s a shame for this country.’’ Reflecting on the theme for the 2017 Physicians’ week tagged ‘‘Declining Immuniza tion Coverage: Threat to National Development and Security, Way Forward’’.  He said it calls for sober reflection.
 
   ‘‘The 2006/2017  National Immunization coverage survey indicates that only 33 % of children 12-23 months of age had 3 doses of petavalent vaccine against the global target of 90 % and only 23 % were fully immunized. 40 percent do not receive any vaccines from health system . ‘‘The implication of this finding is that large population of our children particularly under five years of are unprotected and are therefore at risk of dying from vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis etc and also in infectious risk to other children in near and distant places’.”

       He urged Nigerians to disregard rumour making the rounds that government was injecting poisonous substances in children through immunization saying such rumours were not true. The NMA president regretted that the recent world health report which ranked Nigeria third among the nations with high mortality rates ‘‘was a bad one’’ for the country. He said the NMA would step up aggressive enlighten and advocacy campaign to correct the situation and urged the media to partner it in the projects.