At least 25 resident doctors working with the Jos
University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) in Plateau State have been allegedly sacked
by the management of the institution.
President of the National Association of Resident
Doctors, JUTH branch, Dr. Stephen Lukden, who confirmed the incident on Wednesday,
lamented that the doctors were sacked from their residency training before
completion.
Lukden said: “Twenty-five resident doctors received
letters of termination of their residency training and we have information that
some will receive theirs in the weeks/months to come.”
It was gathered that the information about the
disengagement of the medics, who were all resident doctors, is causing panic at
the hospital which is one of the isolation centres for COVID-19 patients in the
state.
In a letter addressed to the JUTH Chief Medical
Director (CMD), Prof. Edmund Banwat, the resident doctors asked the hospital
management to reverse the sack letters issued to its members, describing the
action as unjust and illegal.
The letter jointly
signed by the President of the association, Lukden, and the General
Secretary, Dr. Noel Nnaegbuna, observed that the Medical Residency Training Act
(MRTA) 2017 which was signed into law by the President of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria and gazetted on July 16, 2018, stipulates guidelines on the conduct
of residency training programme in the country.
They said the Federal Ministry of Health had also
in a letter dated June18, 2019, directed
all Chief Medical Directors in the federal tertiary health institutions to immediately begin the implementation of
the gazetted MRTA acts, and wondered why the JUTH management would go ahead to
sack the affected doctors in a breach of the constitution.
The ARD letter dated May 4, 2020, which was copied
to the board chairman of JUTH, Medical Advisory Council, Nigerian Medical
Association among others, said: “It is sad that this sack is occurring in the
heat of the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government is even considering
recalling retired doctors to the workforce.
"The unlawful termination of these
appointments contravenes the provision of the MRTA which mandates the National
Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN) to regulate the residency training
and also routinely bring out online data bases stating when a resident should
be withdrawn from the programme.
“A similar situation happened in Benue State
University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, where 33 resident doctors were
wrongfully sacked two weeks ago. After deliberations with the state governor,
the doctors were recalled this week.
“In view of this, we ask that the management should
look into this issue again critically and promptly recall the affected resident
doctors as provided in the Medical Residency Training Act by withdrawing the
already issued letters and re-issuing appropriate ones to the affected
doctors.”
However, Banwat could not be reached for comment as
he couldn’t answer the calls placed on his phone twice Wednesday afternoon.
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