The Nigerian Government says it is not in support of the bill before the National Assembly seeking to control the migration of doctors to foreign countries.
The country’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, gave the government’s position on Monday, while fielding questions from State House Correspondents at the end of the extraordinary Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Commenting on the threat by doctors to go on a five day warning strike over what they perceived as the attempt to compulsorily keep medical and dental graduates in the country for five years after graduation, before granting them license to practice, Dr Ngige said the bill will go against extant Labour laws.
However, the sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives, Ganiyu Johnson, representing Lagos State, had explained that the move was to check the mass exodus of medical professionals from the country.
“The Bill in the National Assembly cannot stop anybody from getting a full license. That bill is a private member’s bill.
“In the National Assembly they attend to private members’ bills and executive bills. Executive bills emanate from the government into the National Assembly with a stamp of the executive.
“It is either sent by the Attorney General of the Federation or by the President but usually from the Attorney General of the Federation. So, it’s not an executive bill, it’s a private members bill.
“That bill was moved by a man from Lagos. So, members of his constituency can tell him this is worrying us. Can’t we check these doctors this way by you going to speak rather than put up a document?
“That document is, as far as I am concerned, not workable. Ab-initio, I don’t support it and I will never support it. Like I said before, it is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer.
“They should think of other ways if they are trying to check brain drain, there should be other ways,” he said.
Background
The legislation is titled: “A Bill for an Act to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, Cap. M379, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to mandate any Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioner to practice in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted a full license by the council to make quality health services available to Nigeria; and for related matters.”
Following the introduction of the bill, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) had vowed that it will resist any attempt to enslave Nigerian medical doctors under any guise.
The association had announced plans to embark on a five-day warning strike with the immediate withdrawal of the bill as one of its demands.
Other demands are an immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS)to the tune of 200 per cent of the current gross salaries of doctors, the immediate implementation of CONMESS, domestication of the Medical Residency Training Act, and review of hazard allowance by all the state governments as well as private tertiary health institutions where any form of residency training is done; among others.
But Senator Ngige said, “Nobody can say they (doctors) will not get a practicing license till after five years. It will run counter to the laws of the land that have established the progression in the practice of medicine.
“I am a medical doctor. When you graduate from the medical school, you go on a one year apprenticeship called housemanship or internship as the case maybe. After your internship, you are now given a full license because prior to that, what you have is a provisional license of registration with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
“So, after that intensive training, you were signed off by consultants and you became a fully qualified medical doctor to attend to human beings and to work without any supervision again. Supervision then is voluntary.
“Resident Doctors are those who have that full license and they want to acquire post graduate specialty and specialty is known like surgeon, gynecologists, obstetrics, pediatrics and internal medicine of family medicine. So, they are doctors in training.
“If a doctor has read on scholarship, you bond him, if a doctor has read on bursary you can bond him. If a doctor is trained like we are doing now on little or nothing which is like scholarship again because N50,000 a session per medical student is nothing when their counterparts overseas pay seventy thousand pounds for a session.
“So, I don’t support that bill but can bond them if you want.”
Engagement
On a warning strike threatened by NARD, the Minister said it is not necessary since the government was already engaged with the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), their umbrella body.
Ngige explained: “On the demand for a 200 per cent salary increase, the NMA is the father of all doctors in Nigeria and they have about four or five affiliates of which the resident doctors is an association affiliated there.
“You have the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MEDCAN), they are the consultants who are training these medical doctors to become specialists. You also have general medical practitioners association and you also have doctors working in the private sector
“So, NMA is the father of all, including me. So, NMA is discussing with the federal ministry of health, salaries income and wages commission and the ministry of Labour and we know that NMA has accepted a salary increase between 25 and 30 per cent across board for their members.
“So, I don’t know the logic by which people who are members of NMA are now coming up to say pay us 200 per cent increase. I don’t understand it.
“I have called the NMA President to contact them because on the issue of remuneration negotiation, it’s NMA that the government deals with. So, I have told the President of NMA to contact them and we will engage them. They should not go on any strike, it’s not necessary.”
Ngige also said that FEC approved the Universal Implementation of the Employee Compensation Act (ECA) 2010 following a memorandum presented by his ministry.
He explained that the law is operated by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), noting that it is a replacement of the old Employee Compensation Act that was known as ”Workmen Compensation.”
According to him, the Council has approved it for universal implementation, “meaning that apart from the private sector, that is already implementing, the public sector, which is government; federal, state and local governments have now to adopt this for the protection of their workers.”
He further stated: “The Act provides that the worker who is injured or had an accident or contacted a disease or disabled or dead in the course of work, should be compensated, remunerated and even the family, pay something when the man is no longer there. It didn’t make provision for some of the children to be schooled or educated, up to the age of 21.
“So today is a good day for the Nigerian workers because the decent work agenda that is contained in Convention102 of the ILO has a major branch on what they call workers’ protection in the course of work.
“So this is the law and Nigeria has today directed that all workers in the ministries, departments and agencies of the government should be covered with a percentage contribution. It’s an insurance premium, 1% of remuneration. You pay it and it insures your worker against these workplace accident injuries.
“That is what the Council passed today and directed the Minister of Finance and the Budget Office of the Federation to make provision for it in the annual budget as social contributions. Under the subject of Social Contributions in our annual appropriation, as of today, you only have two items there; number one is Pension Contribution of employers. Second one is the Health Insurance Scheme by the employer.”
PIAK
