Mandatory Five Years Service Not Solution To Impending Crisis In Nigeria’s Healthcare System-NMA

A bill seeking a five-year compulsory service for medical and dental practitioners has been frowned at by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).

Speaking on Politics Today aired on Channels Television on Wednesday, April 12, the NMA President, Dr Ojinma Uche said the bill is not the solution to the pending crisis in Nigeria’s healthcare system.

“That is not the solution,” he noted.

“You will discourage young medical students from reading Medicine. My own fear now is that it may have spooked the doctors that will be planning to leave in a year to start leaving immediately, before they are clamped down,” he stated.

“If you now decide that Nigerian doctors cannot have full or permanent licence for five years after graduation, automatically, you have made them house officers for five years,” he added.

On Thursday, April 6, a bill seeking a minimum of five years for doctors to practice in the country, before being granted a full licence passed second reading at the House of Representatives.

The bill which is aimed at checkmating  the mass exodus of healthcare workers leaving Nigeria for greener pastures abroad is sponsored by Honourable Ganiyu Johnson (APC/Lagos), who is seeking to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act 2004, to address the brain drain in the Nigerian health sector.

The bill, if passed into law, will mandate medical and dental practitioners trained in the country to practice for at least five years before they are granted a full licence.