Ibrahim Oloriegbe, the Senate committee chairman on health, has told his colleagues in the House of Representatives that the bill to prevent Nigerian-trained medical or dental practitioners from leaving Nigeria until after 5 years of practicing in the country will fail....CONTINUE READING
The sponsor of the bill, Ganiyu Johnson, representing Oshodi/Isolo Federal Constituency, proposed that such persons should have their licences withheld to prevent them from leaving the country within five five years of being qualified……CONTINUE READING
According to Johnson, this will help to curb the mass exodus of doctors from the country. The bill scaled second reading in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
But reacting in a series of tweets on Saturday, Oloriegbe, who himself is a medical doctor, said the sponsor of the bill clearly lacks understanding of how medical licences work.
The Senator gave reasons why Johnson’s strategy to address the challenge of brain drain in the health sector cannot work.
“This factors responsible for brain drain are multifaceted and the mere denial of full practice license to medical practitioners as contained in the proposal will never resolve and may even aggravate them.
“A person who is “qualified as a Medical Doctor” cannot be denied a license to practise having been certified qualified, except if he is found wanting in the ethics of the profession. Labour laws will come into place here,” he said.
“Besides, it is not only medical doctors that are leaving the country for greener pastures abroad, there are other health workers, as well as professionals in other fields of human endeavour, trained but leaving the country on daily basis for similar purposes, consequently, focusing attention only on the medical doctors is like curing one of many ailments that are threatening the life of a dying patient without finding solutions to the others.”
Oloriegbe noted that the proposed legislation “violates the right to the “Freedom of Movement” (Sec. 41) and The right to freedom from discrimination under (Sec. 42) as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) 1999, as amended,” hence it would be illegal to prevent doctors who have not committed any offence from leaving the country.
He added, “before the bill can be considered for legislative passage and executives’ approval, the following fundamental issues are important to scrutinise:
“a) When does the 5-year period start, before or after the housemanship?
“b) What sort of license will be awarded to a fully trained doctor instead of a full license to practise under the proposal?
*c) Is there going to be a limit in the doctor’s scope of practice, and to what extent are the limits during the five years waiting period? And we need to establish why we are putting such limits; is it for lack of skills, or political expediency?
“d) What happens after the five years of denial of rights to practise?
*e) Consequently, how will this law advance the quality of clinical services, education, and research in any system, let alone, a crippled one like ours?”
The Senator advised that resolving the challenge of brain drain in the health sector will require the government to address the various factors that make skilled health workers desire to migrate out of Nigeria
“I, therefore recommend that rather than enacting laws that will curtail the rights of the citizens to free movement and seek better opportunities through legal means, we should advocate for an improved system that will be very attractive and make medical practitioners unwilling to travel abroad to seek better living conditions. That is, we have to make our pastures to be greener so that other people’s pastures won’t be tempting to them.
“We can achieve this through the following recommendations:
“i. Medical students could be obliged to choose between paying the standard market rate for their training or opting for government-subsidized training. Quality education in its real sense can’t be free.
“Those who however opted for subsidized training after their qualification would in return be compelled to work in Nigeria for a certain time or refund the subsidies. This is a practice obtainable even in advanced countries such as the UK.
“ii. To achieve the goal of a mandatory work scheme, we can enable a system that will guarantee employment opportunities for medical professionals after their qualification and provide inflation-adjusted living earnings for a few years after graduation on the condition that they stay in Nigeria to practice. Apart from providing attractive remunerations, their work environment and career expectations should also be prioritized. Incorporating both measures should give us satisfactory results.
“iii. Lastly and importantly, we need to improve our health system with sustainable investments to make it conducive for the various health workers to work. We can be assured of better outputs only if what we input is in good condition……CONTINUE READING
