Federal Government, yesterday, opposed a bill sponsored by a member of House of Representatives, Ganiyu Johnson (APC: Lagos), seeking to check migration of doctors and other medical professionals.
The proposed piece of legislation is making it compulsory for medical graduates to practise at least five years before licensing.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, who said the bill contravenes extant Labour laws, addressed newsmen after the extraordinary Federal Executive Council (FEC), presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He was responding to a question on the threat by doctors to go on a warning strike over what they perceived as an attempt to compulsorily keep medical and dental graduates in the country for five years.
Ngige explained: “Nobody can say they (doctors) will not get a practising licence till after five years. It will run counter to the laws of the land that have established the progression in the practice of medicine.
“I am a medical doctor. When you graduate from the medical school, you go on one-year apprenticeship called housemanship or internship as the case maybe. After your internship, you are now given a full licence because prior to that, what you have is a provisional licence of registration with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
“So, after that intensive training, you are signed off by consultants and you become a fully qualified medical doctor to attend to human beings, and to work without any supervision again. Supervision then is voluntary.
“Resident doctors are those who have that full licence, and they want to acquire post-graduate speciality like surgeon, gynecology, obstetrics, paediatrics and internal medicine of family medicine. So, they are doctors in training.
“The bill before the National Assembly cannot stop anybody from getting a full licence. That bill is a private member bill.”
The bill sponsor, Johnson, had explained that the move was to check the brain drain in the sector.
The legislation is titled: “A Bill for an Act to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, Cap. M379, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to mandate any Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioner to practise in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted a full licence by the Council to make quality health services available to Nigeria; and for related matters.”
Following introduction of the bill, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) had vowed to resist any attempt to enslave medics under any guise.
The association has, therefore, announced plan to embark on a five-day warning strike and demanded immediate withdrawal of the bill.
Other demands are immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure by 200 per cent of the current gross salaries of doctors, immediate implementation of CONMESS, domestication of Medical Residency Training Act and review of hazard allowance by state governments and private tertiary health institutions, where any form of residency training is done, among others.
