Ngige Tackles NMA, Doctors say FG Rejected Health Bank Proposal
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, on Thursday said the doctors’ union should not only be for the purpose of personal aggrandisement and asking members to go on strike. This is as the Nigerian Medical Association said the Federal Government rejected its proposal for the establishment of a health bank as part of efforts to solve the problems bedevilling the nation’s health sector.
Ngige said his statement on Channels Television on brain drain in the health sector was subjected to serial distortions and misinterpretations by the NMA. The NMA and the NARD had berated the minister for saying during the television interview that Nigeria had more than enough medical doctors and that there was nothing wrong in them seeking greener pasture abroad. A statement issued by the Special Assistant on Media to the minister, Nwachukwu Obidiwe, described the reportage of the ‘incident’ as unnecessary and selective, while calling for a deeper understanding of the issue in question.
Quoting the minister, the statement said, “Apart from Nigeria’s non-compliance with the World Health Organisation’s ratio of one doctor to 600 patients of which I was misquoted, every other thing I said in that interview is an existential reality, useful and constructive facts which every Nigerian that watched the full interview will hardly dispute. “I invite opinion moulders especially those who have spoken or written on this issue to watch the full clip of my interview with Channels.
“The NMA and NARD have a duty to campaign and persuade state governments to devote more funds to health care. The doctors’ union is not only for the purpose of personal aggrandisement, asking for more emoluments and perennially egging members to go on strike.”
The minister said while the Federal Government had recorded remarkably steady improvement in the health-care system, Nigeria had yet to get there.
He added, “We do not at present have enough health facilities to accommodate all the doctors seeking to do tertiary specialist training (residency) in the teaching hospitals, Federal Medical Centres and few accredited state and private specialist centres in the country, where roughly 20 per cent of the yearly applicants are absorbed while the remaining 80 per cent, try their luck elsewhere.”
The statement added that the minister had meant that these professionals had the right to seek for training abroad to sharpen their skills, become specialists and later turn this problem to a national advantage when they repatriate their legitimate earnings back to the country.
The statement said that the Ministry of Labour and Employment had a migration policy, developed with the European Union to assist skilled Nigerians to work and earn a decent living abroad.
Ngige said while Nigeria had enough medical personnel to man non-specialist centres in the rural areas, the major problem was the refusal of young doctors to work in the hinterland.
FG rejected our proposal for health bank, says NMA
But in an interview with one of our correspondents, the National President of the NMA, Dr Francis Faduyile, said the association met with the Vice-President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, two weeks ago with a view to discussing problems in the health sector with the Federal Government.
Faduyile said that the Federal Government rejected the NMA’s proposal on the establishment of a health bank on the grounds that many sectors were competing for government’s funds.
The NMA president stated that political office holders were not bothered about the decay in the health sector because they travelled abroad to treat minor ailments.
He said, “Two weeks ago, we were with the Vice-President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, we told him about declaring a state of emergency in the sector health, by making sure we have a health bank where we can have private practitioners to be able to obtain a loan on a moratorium of at least five years and single digit loan so that they can stabilise themselves.
“We have also discussed with them about expanding the health insurance scheme to the informal sector. In fact, the NMA is going ahead to form its own health insurance scheme which is christened, Project 5by3, that is getting 5,000,000 Nigerians enrolled within the next three years.
Faduyile said the health crises predated the present government because those who managed the sector gave the impression that health should be free.
The NMA president stated, “It is when we have health insurance that anybody can go into a hospital and get treatment without looking at his or her own pocket; but the compliance with health insurance is still abysmally low, for example, less than five per cent of our population have subscribed to the health insurance since we started about nine or 10 years ago.
“Importantly, successive governments have been having a declining interest in the health sector and it is unfortunate that we have some states in this country like Zamfara with fewer than 50 doctors in its employment.”
