The Lagos State Government has assured doctors in its employment of safety in the discharge of their duties.
The government said no one can take any scurrilous action against them for taking up employment with the state or choosing to stay on their job in spite of the strike action by their sacked colleagues.
In a statement on Friday by the Public Relations Officer of the state’s Ministry of Health, Jide Lawal, the government said it had become necessary to make this position known because of the threatening text messages the working doctors have been receiving.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, described the authorship of the text as dubious.
The text said doctors who are working in various government hospitals in Lagos State would face the disciplinary committee set up by the Nigeria Medical Association and Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for various offences, including unprofessional conduct.
Describing the action as preposterous, Idris noted that it is not the intention of government to join issues with anyone.
He said what is going on now amounts to a campaign of intimidation and disinformation, stressing that the state government feels obliged for the sake of decency and information of the public to state that the NMA is a voluntary association of doctors and as such, no doctor has the authority to impose his or her views over any other member or punish them for holding divergent views.
Idris said: “The Nigeria Medical Association is modelled after the British Medical Association.
“It is a voluntary association of doctors to whose membership doctors are automatically entitled once they are qualified and registered.
“All members are equal and no person or group within the association has the authority to impose their views over any other members or punish them for holding such views or acting on them.”
Idris added that the MDCN modelled after the General Medical Council of the UK, is a body set up by government to regulate the practice of medicine and to register practitioners and monitor the standards of professional practice.
He said: “It has a chairman, a registrar and several statutory members, one of whom is the President of the NMA.
“Its operating rules are very precise and the only matters that determine eligibility for professional registration and registration renewal are the individual qualifications and complaint pertaining to the quality of output of professional practice.”
The commissioner noted that the MDCN has no power or mandate to support any strike action or act as a gatekeeper for those seeking to enforce denial of medical service to innocent citizens.
He added that the MDCN’s recent thrust has been to build consensus among doctors and that the hasty withdrawal of medical service to citizens is wrong and against the ethics of the medical profession.
While stressing that medical services are gradually being scaled up in various state owned hospitals, Idris urged any doctor in its employ who experiences any incidence of threatening language or behaviour from any one to call 08052345000, 08035797692, 08036248687, 08029997474, 08080334348 or 08022236530.
He added: “We wish to state that Nigeria is a country under the rule of law.
“Issuing verbal or physical threats or causing such to be disseminated to other citizens is a criminal offence and authors of such, when apprehended can and will be prosecuted in the court of law.”