Resident Doctors Protest Illegal Sack Of Colleagues Despite Court Order
HUNDREDS of Resident Doctors of the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) yesterday protested what they termed as the non-implementation of the industrial court order asking its Chief Medical Director, Professor Edmund Banwat, to stop the sack of doctors in the health institution.
The protesting doctors carried placards with inscriptions as, “Federalgovernmentcallthecmdofjuthto order,fgsavethejos Universityteachinghospital,letusstopkillings.no worknopay,whatabout workwithoutpay?juth management,obeycourt order.blowthewhistle, Buharimusthearthis.let thekillingsofpatientsstop. Stoptheillegalsackingofthe Residentdoctors.” The National Industrial Court sitting in Abuja had last month ordered the JUTH CMD to desist from sacking Resident Doctors and to fully comply with the circular issued by the Ministry of Health regarding the Residency
Training Programme of the doctors.
President of the Association of Resident Doctors, Paul Agbo, who addressed journalists in Jos after the protest said that the CMD, instead of adhering to the court order stopping further sack of the doctors, continued to sack his members by withholding the salaries of the affected doctors and preventing them from continuing with their postings.
He further lamented that patients and workers in the hospital have suffered due to frequent disruptions occasioned by poor handling of issues by the hospital management under the leadership of Professor Banwat, while calling on the critical stakeholders and well meaning Nigerians to call the CMD to order before he plunges the health institution into another round of crisis.
All efforts to get the reaction of the CMD proved abortive, as he did not pick the calls put to his phone.
JUTH relied on the FG Circular of 2013, which stipulates that the doctors could serve for only six years. But the Doctors have objected with a recent circular dated April 20, 2016 which allows doctors to serve for nine or ten years depending on their department.