Court orders JUTH CMD to stop sacking doctors

An order of the court asking the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), Edmund Banwat to desist from sacking Resident Doctors has been granted by a court in Abuja.

The National Industrial Court presided over by Honourable Justice Waziri Abali also ordered the CMD and the hospital to fully comply with the Circular issued by the Federal Ministry of Health regarding the Residency Training Programme of the doctors.

Among the doctors already sacked, according to the court papers filed by Gyang Zi and Knights Firms include ten doctors, comprising four Surgeons, four Gynaecologists and two doctors from the Department of Medicine.

JUTH, in moving to sack the doctors, had relied on the Federal Government Circular of 2013, which stipulates that the doctors could serve for only six years.

But the Doctors through their Counsel, Gyang Zi have objected to that citing what they said was the most recent circular dated April 20,2016 which they insisted superseded every other circular. The 2016 Circular allows the doctors serve for nine and ten years depending on their departments

The orders of the court dated August 29, 2017, which was obtained by The Guardian, also directed the CMD to re-instate all the Resident Doctors whose appointments were unlawfully terminated prior to the expiration of their Residency Training Programme in contravention of the Approved Template by the Federal Ministry of Health dated 10th July, 2014.