Kaduna: NMA Urges Government To Review Salaries Of Doctors

The Kaduna State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has called on the state government to review the salaries of medical doctors

Dr Madaki Sheyin, the state’s NMA Chairman said this on Monday in Kaduna at an event to mark the 2022 Physicians’ Week, tagged; “Nigeria’s Health Care Delivery System and the 2023 Democratic Transition: A Time to Change the Narrative.”

Sheyin, therefore, linked the 2022 theme of the week with the 2023 general elections, saying “the 2022 theme of the Physician’s Week is in tandem with the most important upcoming event in the country.

“The sub-themes — Mitigating the Impact of Brain Drain on Dwindling Human Resource for Health and Health Reforms in the Face of Emerging Public Health Threats — were chosen to intimate the government on the state of the health sector.

“The era of blind loyalty is over. Let us all patiently wait to hear the plans of the presidential candidates for Nigeria and gubernatorial candidates in Kaduna, especially in the health sector, before pitching our political support tent.

“On the sub-themes, the issue of progressive depletion of human resources for health cannot be overemphasized.”

The NMA chairman also called on the state government to approve hazard allowance for doctors, saying “the Nigerian doctor is poorly paid, overworked, lacks necessary work tools and a target of kidnapping.

“The Kaduna doctor is even the worst hit by this poor welfare condition.

"This, alongside insecurity, are largely responsible for the mass exodus of doctors, causing brain drain.”

He, however, commended the state government “for significant infrastructure development, especially in the area of primary health.”

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN, the NMA Physicians’ Week is an annual event during which the Sacrificial works of physicians are given prominence and doctors are celebrated.