According to Uche, the bill does not address the impending healthcare system catastrophe in the country.
The proposed five-year mandatory service requirement for medical and dental professionals has been rejected by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).
A bill that would have required doctors to work in the nation for at least five years prior to receiving a full license passed second reading at the House of Representatives on Thursday.
The bill’s sponsor, Honourable Ganiyu Johnson (APC/Lagos), expressed concern over the large-scale exodus of medical professionals leaving Nigeria in search of better opportunities abroad and said the bill aims to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act 2004 to address the brain drain in the country’s healthcare industry.
Nevertheless, the NMA President, Dr. Ojinma Uche, stated during a Wednesday interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today that the law is not the answer to the impending crisis in the country’s healthcare sector.
He encouraged the Federal Government to confront both the security issues that medical professionals face and the urgent needs of their wellbeing in order to solve the problem’s fundamental cause.
Uche bemoaned the poor pay for doctors as well as the fact that some of them have been kidnapped and targeted by armed robbers.
“That’s not the answer. You’ll put off young medical students from reading the medical literature. My own concern is that it may have prompted doctors who were planned to quit in a year to do so now, before restrictions are put in place, the man said.
“You have automatically made Nigerian doctors house officers for five years if you decide that they cannot get a full or permanent license for five years after graduation.”
If the bill becomes law, it will require foreign-trained medical and dental professionals to work for at least five years before receiving a full license.
