Nigerian Government Supends Residency Training

(THEWILL)14:08:2014 – President Goodluck Jonathan Wednesday suspended the Residency Training Programme for medical doctors in Nigeria indefinitely and sacked Resident Doctors in all federal government owned institutions.

The President’s directive follows the protracted industrial dispute between doctors under the auspices of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) and the federal government over pay and poor funding for government owned health institutions.

An internal memo to all heads of federal tertiary health institutions signed by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, L.N. Awute, on behalf of the Minister of Health, directed them to sack all Resident Doctors in their facilities with immediate effect and directed that measures be taken to restore full medical services in their hospitals.

A member of the board of the NMA has described the sack of resident doctors and the suspension of the Residency Programme as a knee jerk reaction to the dispute between the federal government and the NMA.

In a reaction to the development, the official who asked not to be identified in this report told THEWILL that an emergency session of delegates has been called by the NMA to deliberate on the development adding that a formal statement condemning the decision of the president will be issued momentarily.

The official said the President targeted the weakest link amongst doctors by going after thousands of the residents adding that with their sack those hospitals no long qualify as teaching or specialist hospitals because you cannot operate them without residents and consultants. “It is just like you cannot have a school when there are no students and teachers” the official said.

“We have been through this before at least twice. Government never learns. The action of the President is disappointing. Instead of addressing the serious issues we want dealt with the President is escalating the problem,” the official added.

A Dying Health Sector...

Medic-ALL (14:08:2014)

"Work Hard and Get Out" !!! Said in the meanest and most scary tone I have heard in a surgery lecture room. Those were the words of one of the foremost Plastic surgeons in West Africa to my graduating class after a tutorial class on the eve of our final medical school exams. As puzzling as those words may seem, I was perfectly in tune with the heartfelt and sincere burden on the mind of this very senior colleague that would have prompted him to render such counsel to a focused group of medical students on their way into the real world of medicine in a country like ours.

This was a class that had to spend an extra 6 months in school, because of a strike action by resident doctors in the state to challenge the decision of the State Government to pay less than the stipulated CONMES(Consolidated Medical Salary Scale) approved by the Federal Government to it's doctors, in spite of the obvious fact that these doctors are overworked as compared to their Federal counterparts due to a perennial under-staffing. At the time the State Government eventually went ahead to issue sack letters to the doctors (including residents and Consultant specialists) in the state and employed contract medical-officers in their place. The sack-scare paid off and the strike was subsequently called off ,but the state doctors never got a decision in their favor.

Fast-Forward to 2014 , and its a nationwide strike by the Nigerian Medical Association to challenge certain Federal Government health sector policies which the body believes does not augur well for the future of the sector in the country as well as to see the implementation of other demands summed up in the union 23-point demand sent to the Federal Government a few weeks before embarking on a withdrawal of service.

The strike has lingered on for weeks , despite the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the country and  several meetings have being held among the various stakeholders to ensure a resolution of the issues surrounding the 45-day old strike, no positive conclusions are yet to be reached. There have being rumours regarding how the Federal Government will choose to tackle the problems in the barely thriving health sector, including reports indicating that the Government was planning to privatise the Public Hospitals (including Teaching Hospitals!). This of course raised several questions and sparked debates particularly as it relates to the Act that created Teaching Hospitals for the primary purposes of training and research as opposed to Private Hospitals which are more or less profit-making establishments.

An authoritative answer to these questions was received earlier today in the form of a Federal Government directive suspending residency training (training of doctors into specialists) in the country indefinitely and the immediate sack of the doctors presently in residency training. While the directive was said to be for the purpose of appraising the problems in the health sector, many are wondering if this drastic step would not leave the health sector in shambles!...and hoping that this is not the "Beginning of the End" of Nigeria's already "Frail" health sector as we know it.

Genuine Questions Arising?

Did the Federal Government take this decision in order to force the hand of the striking doctors to come to a compromise?

Was the decision taken to weaken the resolve of the NMA (Nigerian Medical Association) , keeping in mind that it is believed that the NARD (National Association of Resident Doctors) serves as the mitochondria of the sister body?

Is this a way of pitching the doctors against each other (as was the case between the Lagos State resident Doctors and the locum doctors employed on contract during the CONMESS struggle)? Moreso as the Presidency has ordered immediate employment of locum doctors on a contract basis.

Is there still anything to fight for as far as the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) are concerned?

In a country where the health sector already suffers a huge shortage of personell, particularly doctors ,thanks to the daily mass exodus of Nigerian doctors to countries were they are perhaps more appreciated(40,000 on the United States halth care system). Will such a decision force many more out of a system that seems to be in need of help as it is?

How well can the health sector thrive without specialist training?

What is the future of medicine and healthcare in this country?

Where do we go from here?....

Medic-ALL.Inc 2014

Read Also:
Diagnosis : A Troubled Health Sector
Doctors' Strike : Will the NMA be banned?
Brain Drain:The Mass Exodus of Nigerian Doctors

Ebola WATCH:.WHAT'S NEW!!!

SATURDAY 02:08:2014

US Ebola victim arrives at Emory University hospital in Atlanta:

One of two two US victims of the West African Ebola outbreak, Dr. Kent Brantly arrived in the country on Saturday and was transferred to an Atlanta hospital with one of the most sophisticated isolation units in the country.

He was flown by specially adapted private jet to Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. He was said to have contracted the disease while working for a charity in Liberia.

The other victim is to be carried on a latter flight as the plane is equipped to carry one patient at a time.

State of Emergency in Sierra Leone:

A state of emergency has been declared in Sierra Leone and troops have been called in to enforce an Ebola quarantine, joining Liberia in imposing controls to curb the worst ever outbreak of the virus amid fears it could spread beyond West Africa.

Nigeria's 1479 Land Borders raises fears

There are fears that Nigeria's 1479 porous borders poses a threat to the ability of the country to check the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. There are calls being made to ensure the closing of some of the borders by the Federal Government.

A disease out of control?

Doctors beyond borders fear that the deadly Ebola virus disease may be out of control.

Ref : the guardian (U.S)

         Punch (Ngr)

Medic-ALL.Inc

Businessdayonline: Lagos quarantines hospital where Ebola victim died

Businessdayonline (Lagos)

Monday 28/7/2014

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris on Monday, said the state has shut down and quarantined a hospital where a Liberian man died of Ebola in the first recorded case of the highly infectious disease in the country.

Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry in his 40s, collapsed on arrival at Lagos airport on July 20 and was put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende. He died on Friday.

“We have shut the hospital to enable us to properly quarantine the environment. Some of the hospital staff who were in close contact with the victim have been isolated,” Idris said.

The hospital will be shut for a week and all staff monitored to ensure the virus has not spread, he added.

Ebola has killed 672 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in February.

It can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch it, although the fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 percent. Highly contagious, especially in the late stages, symptoms include vomiting, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding.

Adding to the risks, Nigerian doctors are on strike over conditions and pay. Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association Tope Ojo was quoted in local media on Saturday as saying the strike would not be called off despite the Ebola threat.

Nigeria’s airports, seaports and land borders have been on “red alert” since Friday.

Liberia closed most of its border crossings on Sunday and introduced stringent health measures.

The World Health Organization said in a statement that Sawyer’s flight stopped in Lome in Togo on its way to Lagos.

“WHO is sending teams to both Nigeria and Togo to do follow up work in relation to contact tracing, in particular to contacts he may have had on board the flight,” WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said.

The WHO said that in the past week, its regional director for Africa, Luis Sambo, had been on a fact finding mission to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have 1,201 confirmed, suspected and probable cases between them.

“He observed that the outbreak is beyond each national health sector alone and urged the governments of the affected countries to mobilise and involve all sectors, including civil society and communities, in the response,” the WHO statement said.

A relative surge in cases in Guinea after weeks of low viral activity showed that “undetected chains of transmission existed in the community”, the WHO said, calling for containment measures and contact tracing to be stepped up in Guinea.