By Premium Times October 24 2017.
Nigerian doctors have threatened to go on mass ‘sabbatical’ if the federal government accedes to the demand of other health sector workers.
In what is clearly a continuation of the rivalry between doctors and other health workers, the doctors, under the banner of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, described the association of other health workers, JOHESU, as an ‘illegal body.’
The NMA declared its opposition to many of the demands made by JOHESU, describing them as unacceptable.
The members of JOHESU are hospital workers apart from medical doctors and dentists.
The NMA Chairman, Mike Ogirima, while addressing a news conference in Ilorin on Monday to mark the 2017 Physician Week, warned that doctors “will be compelled to take a sabbatical, if JOHESU does not contain its radicalism.”
“Government should not allow itself to be intimidated by illegal bodies like JOHESU in the health sector; we expect each professional to stick to the ethics of their profession,” he said.
The chairman also alleged that doctors are now endangered species in the communities and traditional hospital environment.
“The value for money and hospitals titles have made the members of JOHESU to set up fellowship colleges with the aim of bearing the title of consultants,’’ he said.
JOHESU embarked on a nationwide strike on September 20 to protest among other issues, salaries adjustments, promotion arrears, and improved work environment for its members.