Public hospitals are dead, doctors warn

Doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) have alerted on impending disaster and collapse of government hospitals and the public health sector in the country, even as they called for immediate action against existing and emerging absurdities in the nation’s heath care delivery.

NMA in a press statement released yesterday, after its National Officers’ Committee meeting said it is highly appalled by the state of affairs in the healthcare delivery system, which has been reinforced by the recent ruling of National Industrial Court.

NMA in the statement signed by its President, Dr. Kayode Obembe, and Secretary General, Dr. Adewunmi Alayaki, said: “For almost two decades now, the nation’s health sector has been unduly traumatised and continually subjected to crippling upheavals by persons who have insisted on redefining the time-hallowed and universally accepted meaning of medicine and the medical profession. They have been aided by the acquiescence or collusion of some persons entrusted with power and authority to perform certain roles in the system, to foist a state of frozen conflict on the healthcare delivery system of Nigeria to the detriment of the public.”

It called on all relevant government Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the federal as well as state government, legislatures and all Nigerians to come to the rescue of the nation from the impending doom in the public health sector.

The association said this is the time for the National Assembly to hold joint probes into what has shattered the peace of the public health sector. It said this is the best time for eminent Nigerians, respected traditional rulers and religious leaders to plead with government to halt the crisis going on in the health sector.

The NMA requested that the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria should be reconstituted without further delay so that appropriate regulatory activitie can be effectively executed in line with the legal provisions.

It added that it believes the recommendations of the Yayale Ahmed committee on inter-professional relationships in the public health sector would be implemented forthwith.