Resident doctors call out for the resignation of Ministers of Labour and Minister of Health respectively.

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has called for the resignation of the Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige, and the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire over what they describe as a failure of leadership.

Dr. Julian Ojebo who is the First Vice President of the Association made this call in a radio interview on Wednesday in Abuja.

He alleged that the Executive Appointees of the Federal Government are stalling the process of meeting their demands, and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call them to order.

He said, “In Saner climes where things work properly, the Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige and the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, will be resigning by this morning for failure of leadership.

“It is no longer news that the Executive Appointees of government are the ones that are actually stalling these processes. It is a blatant lie when they say that the resident doctors refused to come back to a meeting. The meeting started about 12 p.m. and lasted for quite a while, for about 4 hours and then we went on recess.

“When you go on recess and you are about to come back for a meeting, the government is telling us to call off an Industrial Action without meeting any of our demands. In its entirety, that is wrong.

“Concerning all our demands, we have not seen anything and they said they have paid. We called our members out and asked them – ‘has anyone received any monies?’ and the answer was no.

“Yes, they said the timing is wrong but there is no timing that is right. No doctor will want his or her patient to die, and no doctor will want to commit suicide because of his or her Hippocratic Oath. Should they also have brothers and sisters that are doctors, how will they feel that their welfare is not being taken care of?

“So, let us put everything into perspective; there is no wrong or right time to embark on an Industrial Action. We have been on this matter since 2014.”

Dr. Ojebo added, “Because of the goodwill we have for the Nigerian people, and because of the swift intervention by the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives and Dr. Tanko Sununu, we did convene a meeting and said all the COVID-19 treatment and isolation centres shall be properly covered. There is no treatment centre currently in Nigeria that is not covered.

“We are appealing to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, to call his Executive Appointees to order. I am sure these guys are not relaying the true picture of the decay in the health sector to the President.

“The President is a beneficiary of a good health system. He has gone abroad in the UK and has seen how standard practices are done. Why not replicate it in Nigeria? For example, we don’t even have ambulances to transport patients; I don’t even want to talk about transport ventilators; as a critical care physician, let me not even go there.”

Speaking with the Nation, the Publicity Secretary of NARD, Dr Stanley Egbuogu, said it has instructed its members nationwide to disregard the directive issued by the Minister of Health, instructing all Medical Directors to make a record of the doctors that report for work and those that did not.

“This is a pandemic and we are talking about social and physical distancing, and someone is saying people should come and queue up and write a register. In some teaching hospitals, we have close to 4,000 doctors depending on the capacity of the hospital.

“For us, we have directed our members not to write any name. Our members have neglected it and told us that they are fully with us. We are waiting to see a better response from the government.”