Home FEATURES Fed. Govt Moves To Punish Doctors In Public Hospitals Operating Private Clinics

Fed. Govt Moves To Punish Doctors In Public Hospitals Operating Private Clinics

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Federal Government has made a move to sanction medical doctors working in government hospitals that are operating private clinics and hospital of their own.

The minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewale, who dropped this hint at a news briefing on Wednesday shortly after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said that a committee has been set up to look into the matter and to recommend appropriate measure to stop the practice.

He said that FEC reviewed the situation and decided to look into the issue of private practice by medical doctors in the public sector “and a committee has been set up to look extensively into that issue because we want to resolve the issue of what does the law of the land says and what the rule of professional ethics says.

“The law of the land does not allow any public officer to do anything other than farming, so that committee would make appropriate recommendation to government on this important issues which is of considerable interest to quite a number of Nigerians.”

Professor Adewale said that FEC also looked at the Yayale Ahmed report which tried to look into the relationship between professional groups in the health sector and the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

He said that a committee has been mandated to forward a white paper on the Yayale Ahmed report to the FEC so that once and for all, government can restore harmony to the health sector.

“In addition council also considered an important memo on industrial relations, particularly in the public sector. That report dealt extensively with several issues but for us, the health sector is the most important and the need to do comprehensive job evaluation, so government has decided to set up a committee that would evaluate what exactly do we do as individuals, how much should we be paid in a way that we can really pay appropriately across board through the entire country.

“Council also looked at the issue of residency training programme and decided that the training should last for a fixed time of seven years after training for seven years individuals should exit from the programme so that other people can come into the programme.” [myad]