The National Association of Resident Doctors, North Central chapter has condemned the assault of the medical personnel in the region while performing their duties and the sack of resident doctors at the Jos University Teaching Hospital.
The Association, in a press release issued to the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday in Jos, said the action was frustrating the medical personnel in the discharge of their duties during the lockdown.
The leader of NARD, North Central Chapter, Dr. Abdulquadri Idrisu, alleged that medical doctors and other health workers in the region were assaulted while on transit either to or from critical duties.
“The caucus has received reports of recurrent incidents of assault and humiliation, both verbal and physical, on medical doctors and health workers in the North Central region in the course of transit to and from their places of work during the COVID-19 lockdown,” Idrisu said.
He explained that even when the health workers tried to explain to the law enforcement officials who were enforcing the lockdown directives that they were essential workers, their pleas were ignored.
He said the medical personnel were also handling other health challenges affecting some patients other than COVID-19, adding that some of the challenges were life threatening conditions which require daily consultations.
The NARD official called on the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and security agencies enforcing lockdown directives across the country, to put measures in place that would address such indiscriminate harassment.
He said the leadership of NARD in the region might have to direct its members to stay at home if such incidences should reoccur.
The official also expressed concern over the alleged illegal termination of appointments of Resident Doctors in JUTH.
Idrisu said the health sector in the country was in a dire need of more manpower during the pandemic and not their sack.
He said the management of JUTH should refer to the Medical Residency Training Act passed by the National Assembly in 2017 and signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.
He said the law stated the conditions for terminating appointments of resident doctors.
He said the processes, which were alien and not in consonance with the law, would be resisted by the association.
“We call on the management of JUTH and the Federal Ministry of Health to correct the illegality in order to maintain industrial harmony within the state and the North Central Region of the country,” he said.
Idrisu appreciated medical doctors and health workers across the country for discharging their duties effectively during this critical period, when the world was battling to combat COVID-19.
The Public Relations Officer of JUTH, Bridget Omini, in her response to the allegations, said the doctors were relieved of their services after the stipulated six-year period.
Omini said an additional one year was added to their service years.
She said that the disengagement was done in February and wondered why, suddenly, NARD was revisiting the issue.
She said the Chief Medical Officer of JUTH, Prof. Edmund Banwat, would issue a formal statement on the allegations.