NMA issues 21-day ultimatum on health setbacks

Nigeria Medical Association has issued a 21-day ultimatum to compel government to address challenges affecting health, including glitches that have stalled payment of health workers for months. It said government had 21 days from with effect from Monday to correct the irregularities in centralised Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS)—or stop its use until the […]

Nigeria Medical Association has issued a 21-day ultimatum to compel government to address challenges affecting health, including glitches that have stalled payment of health workers for months.

It said government had 21 days from with effect from Monday to correct the irregularities in centralised Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS)—or stop its use until the glitches are sorted out.
In a communiqué issued after its executives met in Sokoto, NMA said irregularities in IPPIS in public hospitals has “greatly undermined the welfare of doctors many of whom have had to endure over three months.”
It would no longer tolerate the “dislocation and unqualified suffering” of affected health workers, it insisted.
Among its resolutions, it criticised delays in inaugurating a governing board for the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria despite several appeals.
It said without a board, the council could not preside over cases of negligence and unethical conduct brought before it.
MDCN has not had a board for at least four years in the last 10 years since its board was dissolved in 2010, said NMA president, Dr Osahon Enabulele.
“The implication of this is that the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Tribunal is non-existent in the country today; a situation akin to a country without Police CID and justice system,” he said.
“How well Nigerian medical practice is regulated today, including the fight against quackery and other unwholesome practices, are better imagined than experienced.”
The association has also restated its support for outsourcing and public-private partnership in health to improve performance and delivery.
It also said it was “deeply concerned” about the anxiety over the “fitness or otherwise” of recently returned governor of Taraba, Danbaba Suntai.
It said it was prepared to make available its member doctors to “constitute a medical board to resolve the lingering question of the medical fitness of the governor and any other public or political office holder.”