Resident doctors carpet Yar’Adua for seeking treatment abroad

The Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria, on Monday, carpeted President Umaru Yar’Adua for seeking medical care outside the shores of the country.

The doctors said the President’s sojourn in Saudi Arabia where he has been receiving treatment for acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the outer membrane of the heart, for the past 71 days constitutes a “moral burden and disservice” to the country.

The NARD’s President, Dr. Olayinka Atilola, told journalists in Ibadan that ordinary citizens who may develop similar health problem like the President has no hope except they too can run for help outside the country as the President.

Atilola stressed that it might be a deliberate policy by the leaders to neglect the health sector since they would always junket abroad for ailment that could be treated in a primary health centre.

He said, “It is a moral burden and disservice for the President of a country to seek medical treatment in a foreign country, irrespective of his health condition.

“What happens to other 139.999 million people, especially those that have no such means? It means that they can go and die. We have the human resources to turn around the fortunes of the health sector, but there is no political will.”

Meanwhile, the doctors have warned of a looming crisis in the health sector if the government fails to implement the negotiated Consolidated Medical Salary Scale.

Addressing a press conference, in Ibadan, Atilola said that feelers from the NARD branches across the country indicated that the Federal Government had reneged on the January, 2010 implementation date.

He said that the association had fought a long drawn battle with the Federal Government before it agreed to a separate salary scale that distinguished doctors from other health workers and civil servants.

On September 30, 2009, which was the ultimatum given to the Federal Government to implement the CONMESS, he said that a circular was issued the same day acceding to the demands to avert the planned strike by the doctors.

Atilola said that the first danger the association noticed, suggesting that the Federal Government might not be sincere, was when the implementation date was shifted forward to January 1, 2010.

In December, last year, he said other health workers also successfully negotiated new salary scale with the government which reduced the relative superior salary of doctors to other health workers to negligible proportion.

He vowed that doctors would resist any attempt to place them almost at par with other health workers without considering the longer years his members spent in medical schools and their higher responsibilities.

The NARD boss said, “It was a gentleman agreement and we agreed. But, our reservation is that if the agreement between the FG and Academic Staff Union of Universities could take immediate effect, why was NARD’s shifted forward?

“In December 2009, the FG signed a separate agreement with the health workers, which stamped out the relativity in our salary scales. That may cause a major crisis in the health sector this year.”

“The Federal Executive Council had approved doctors’ CONMESS and implementation should attract automatic approval. It has nothing to do with budget signing.

“We are peace-loving and we believe we should continue to play a paramount role in the emancipation of Nigeria health sector provided the facilities are there. But, if they treat us with impunity, we shall react with impunity.

“This country is being run with lack of sensitivity to the basic needs of the people and violation of agreements. This government has demonstrated irresponsibility to its citizens and doctors are about to display their own. This is a preliminary warning.”

Atilola also carpeted President Umaru Yar’Adua for seeking medical care in a foreign country, a development he described as a “moral burden and disservice” to the country.

According to him, if the President took advantage of his position to travel abroad for medical attention, it meant that ordinary citizen also having the same ailment with him had no hope.

Although individuals with the means reserve the right to travel abroad for treatment, he said for leaders to climb on the bandwagon underscored the prostrate state of the country’s health sector.