FG urges resident doctors to return to negotiating table.
As the ongoing strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) enters the 3rd day, on Wednesday, the Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunimbe Mamora, has appealed to resident doctors to return to the negotiating table and sort out their grievances with the Federal Government.
Senator Mamora made the appeal at the official opening of the 2021 Annual General and Scientific Conference Meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association Federal Capital Territory (NMA FCT) chapter with the theme, ‘Improving The Quality of Health Care Services in the FCT in the Midst of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases,’ on Tuesday in Abuja.
The Minister who decried that the Primary Health Care Centers (PHCs) were the weakest link in the nation’s healthcare system, maintained that government was making concerted efforts towards changing what he described as an “undesirable narrative.”
While stressing the need to align medical practice with the “new normal,” he disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Health was developing a telemedicine which allows people access health care from afar, as a means of expanding health care coverage to every nook and cranny nationwide.
The guest speaker, Director, Institute for Excellence in Healthcare and Leadership, Prof. Chima Onoka appealed to the resident doctors to return back to work, noted that for every day doctors were absent from work, the masses suffer from preventable crisis.
Director FCT Health Insurance Scheme, Dr. Dan Fulani who maintained that the PHC’s must be adequately taken care of, warned that out of pocket expenditure would not allow health care systems any where in the world including Nigeria, to work.
Dr. Fulani stressed on the need for health insurance to be recognized and embraced in the FCT landscape.
Nancy Anika
