By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Public servants including elected and appointed government officials must be made to use public institutions and facilities instead of the present practice of them patronising foreign hospitals and schools.
This is the admonition of Dr. Alero Ann Roberts, a Consultant in Public Health and Senior Lecturer in Maternal and Child Health at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos (CMUL), while speaking on Arise News breakfast programme The Morning monitored in Abuja on Thursday.
Roberts who featured with Honourable Ganiyu Johnson, the sponsor of the controversial Bill in the Federal House of Representatives, criticised the House Members for trying to poke nose into the affairs of Nigerian medical and health practitioners.
According to her the proposed Bill to stop Doctors migration is part of the grand plot to enslave medical personnels, saying that the Bill is dead on arrival as medical and health practitioners will fight it to standstill.
Said she: “The so-called Bill is ill-conceived, draconian and it should not be allowed to stand because the person who sponsored it does not have any facts.
He does not have the statistics of the number of medical doctors in Nigeria. Also, he did not consult with the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) or other relevant health professional bodies before proposing the Bill.
Speaking further she said that rather than waste their time putting up a Bill that will stop doctors migration, the lawmakers should put in place laws barring public officers from travelling abroad to access medical treatments.
“Public servants including elected and appointed government officials must be made to use public institutions and facilities instead of the present practice of them patronising foreign hospitals and schools. The arguments that doctors are trained in federal government institutions and should stay in Nigeria for five years after graduation before travelling abroad for greener pastures does not hold any water”, Roberts insists.
But Hon. Johnson Member, House of Representatives, Oshodi/Isolo Federal Constituency of Lagos state posited that he is acting on the information available to him by his fellow House Members who are medical doctors, who told him that Nigeria has less than ten thousand doctors hence the Bill to stop doctors migration.
Said he: “I am happy the interest this Bill is generating. I am acting as a concerned Nigerian and I even consulted my colleagues in the House who are medical doctors and they told me what is happening in the medical field and if we continue to allow our trained medical doctors to leave the country then who will stay to treat Nigerians”.
