The Nigeria Medical Association
(NMA) has called on the Federal Government to clearly define its moves to ban
medical doctors in public service from private practice.
Dr Olubunmi Omojowolo, Chairman
of Lagos State chapter of the association, made the appeal in an interview with
the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.
Omojowolo said that though the
law did not permit doctors in public hospitals to own private hospitals, they
could however, offer specialised services to private hospitals when required.
“Actually, this is not new; the
law does not permit doctors who are working in public hospitals to own private
hospitals.
“However, the application has to
be properly defined; when talking about private practice by doctors in public
hospitals, the government has to explain exactly what it is talking about.
“Are you saying that specialists
working for government cannot be invited by private hospitals when they have
emergency or need a specialist in that area to see the patient?
“Are you saying that all patients
that require specialist care who are admitted in private hospitals will have to
be moved to public hospitals?,’’ he said.
The chairman said that it was
practice all over the world that specialists could be invited to either a
public or private health institution to help sort out medical issues.
“For instance, I am a
neurologist; how many neurologists do we have in the country.
“We do not have many of them and
there are cases that need neurologists’ intervention and other cases like that.
“Are they going to be
transferring all patients to public hospitals which are short-staffed and
cannot even take care of the patients they already have?
“Consequent upon this, there is
need for government to define what it is saying so that it will be understood
by everybody.
“This will go a long way to
remove ambiguities and misinterpretations that the proposal has so far
generated,’’ Omojowolo said.
NAN
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