Probe teaching hospitals, resident doctors tell Buhari

Doctors, under the aegis of the National Association
of Resident Doctors, have called on President
Muhammadu Buhari to carry out a forensic audit of
the 54 federal tertiary hospitals in the country.
The NARD President, Dr. Prince Dan-Jumbo, who
spoke to journalists in Lagos on Monday, said the
audit would help to clear or establish allegations of
mismanagement of funds and inflated personnel
spending that the association leveled against the
management of some teaching hospitals.
He stated that the call was part of the association’s
resolutions at the end of its National Executive
Council meeting held at the weekend at Obafemi
Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun
State. The meeting had the theme, ‘A vibrant
residency training programme: An imperative for
national development.’
Dan-Jumbo accused chief medical directors of 34
federal health institutions of disobeying a circular
issued by the Federal Government that skipping
should be implemented for doctors as it was being
done for health workers.
According to him, the non-implementation of the
circular is responsible for the pockets of strike by
resident doctors in tertiary institutions.
Dan-Jumbo said, “Some management of some
teaching hospitals have claimed that they do not have
funds to pay resident doctors who are supposed to
benefit from the policy. But our parent body —
Nigerian Medical Association — has directed that
these institutions which claim they don’t have the
financial backing to commence payment to open
their records for forensic personnel audit, they are
yet to do so.
“ NARD also wrote to the Ministry of Finance in the
past administration that they should audit these
hospitals, we were rebuffed by the Federal Ministry
of Health to go home and face our studies. But we
cannot continue an era whereby people who have
been given the mandate to manage these institutions
now turn them to private business when Nigerians
are in dire need of health care.
“As doctors and stakeholders in the sector who are
willing to render service, we cannot fold our hands
and watch innocent Nigerians die over the greed and
selfish interest of management of these institutions.
That is why we are calling on our members to engage
with these institutions so as to know their true
financial strength and not to ask for any bail out.”
The president warned that if the management of the
affected hospitals refused to negotiate with doctors,
the ongoing strike might continue until their
demands were met.