By Chimezie Godfrey
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has commended the federal government for the prompt response in detecting COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
The President, NARD, Dr Aliyu Sokomba who made the commendation during a press briefing on Thursday in Abuja, encouraged the government to put more effort in strengthening the capacity of hospitals in Nigeria.
“We want to commend the Federal government of Nigeria for the prompt response in detecting COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
“We want to thank them for intensified surveillance and the heightened risk communication campaign efforts in sensitizing Nigerians on the outbreak in the country.
“We hope more efforts would be put into strengthening the capacity of hospitals in the country beyond the four molecular Laboratories of the NCDC to address supply chain management, mapping, and stockpiling of COVID-19 response needs, such as large qualities of personal protective equipment, gloves, surgical masks, coveralls, and hoods, and medical countermeasures like antiviral agents to ensure health care workers are adequately protected,” he said.
Dr Sokomba recalled that the DG, World Health Organization (WHO) stated,”We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting our health workers.”
“He warned that shortages of supplies such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, and aprons, are leaving doctors, nurses and other Frontline health care workers dangerously ill-equiped to give proper care to patients.
“With the recent outbreaks in the country one would thought that protecting the healthcare workers welfare and most importantly their well-being would be given the utmost attention to enable them carry out their job diligently, but this unfortunately is not the case,” he pointed out.
He emphasised that government should make provision for the group life assurance policy, a contract of insurance designed to provide for the payment of capital sum to the dependants of employees who dies while in service, it has failed to implement it.
He stressed that this policy is supposed to be compulsory by virtue of the pension reform act 2014, adding that act requires employers to maintain life insurance policy or death-in service benefit scheme in favour of their employees.
“Six years after the enactment of act, NARD has over this years, made concerted effort with the relevant agencies of government to ensure the health care workers are properly insured to no avail.
“While we await the response of government our employer, we have continue to lose our colleagues needlessly to work related causes. How much longer do we have to wait, this waiting certainly cannot continue,” he stated.
Sokomba also decried the continued loss of health care workers to outbreak of infectious diseases.
“Five years ago, we lost one of best physicians Dr Adadevor to Ebola disease outbreak. We have continued to lose other health care workers to one disease outbreak or the other.
“We just lost a resident doctor, Dr Galadima Mansur to Lassa fever complication hours ago.
“The confirmation of the first case of COVID-19 comes at a time when Nigeria is still battling an outbreak of Lassa fever, which has caused 118 deaths since the beginning of the year affecting 27 states cutting across 100 LGA involving 26 health care workers thus far,” he stressed.
Sokomba condemned circular which was forwarded by the National University Commission to the VCs of Nigerian universities and the Registrar of the NPMCN on postgraduate medical training stating the requirement of a PhD as a prerequisite for career progression of Doctors teaching medical students.
He added that the requirement of PhD is alien and antithetical to medical education and practice world over.
