Declare emergency on health sector, NUAHP urges Buhari

The Nigerian Union of Allied Healthcare Professionals (NUAHP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency on the health sector.

NUAHP comprises pharmacists, physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, radiographers, dieticians, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, medical social workers, optometrists, medical physicians as well as orthodontists and prosthetists, among others.

Fielding questions from newsmen in Ibadan, the National President of NUAHP, Dr. Obinna Chimela Ogbonna, said the sector was bedeviled with poor health services, unchecked medical tourism and avoidable deaths.

The union also called on well-meaning Nigerians and stakeholders to prevail on President Buhari to implement the May10, 2012 agreement with the union.

According to the union, “The present state of anarchy” in the country’s teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres could be attributed to persisting disharmony in the sector which had arisen from lack of opportunities and equal treatment of all members of the health team by the government.

Ogbonna called for urgent restructuring of the Federal Ministry of Health to accommodate other qualified healthcare professionals at the directorate levels while the position of Chief Medical Director (CMD)/Medical Director should not be the exclusive right of the members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).