The Association of Resident Doctors has called on the Rivers State House of Assembly to domesticate the Residency Act in order to lessen the financial burden on members willing to go for further training.
President, Association of Resident Doctors at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), Dr Josephine Sokolo, made the call in Port Harcourt while delivering a memorial lecture in honour of Dr Living Jamala, who lost his life to lasser fever in 2016.
Dr Sokolo says if the residency act is adopted some of the challenges resident doctors face in Rivers State will be resolved.
While appealing to the State legislature to look into the residency act and do the needful, she listed some of the problems facing the association to include lack of manpower and the high cost of training.
“We have a lot of challenges working in the state, such as the lack of man power right now. We are grossly understaffed in the hospital and secondly, as resident doctors, we are going through training and the training is very expensive.
“So because of that we need the residency act to be adopted by the Rivers State House of Assembly and if it is adopted, the residency training will be more affordable,” Dr Sokolo said.

A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Hon. Moshood Salvador, has ruled out the possibility of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winning the state in 2023.
Salvador, a former state PDP Chairman, made the statement in an interview with our source in Lagos yesterday.
He described the recent statement made by the state PDP Chairman, Mr Adedeji Doherty, that the party would dislodge the APC in 2023 as a pipe dream.
Salvador, who joined the APC in 2018, said the opposition party had been greatly depleted, saying the party had no structure to defeat the APC.
“You don’t expect him (Doherty) to tell you that PDP will lose, even if you belong to FF or F9 party, you will say you will win the world.
“This is because you can’t have a political party without certain ambition, aspiration, determination and goal.
“The PDP chairman has to wish himself and the party well. It is his wish; PDP winning Lagos is wishful thinking.
“The success of any political party is its structure. Where is the structure in PDP now? None.
“Everyone has left the party, from the likes of Yomi Finnih, Obanikoro, Demola Seriki and myself, everybody has left. So, I am waiting to see where they will have the people to win,’’ he said.
Salvador said he left the PDP owing to irreconciliable differences with some elders of the party, whom he said, were not for its progress.
The APC chieftain added that he had no regrets dumping the PDP for the ruling party as he felt at home in APC.
On his contributions to his new party, Salvador said he had helped increase the number of APC members by moving thousands of his followers from PDP to the ruling party.
He said most of his followers under the group he called ‘Conscience Forum’ defected with him while others joined the APC later.
The former PDP chairman added that the movement further depleted the opposition party in the state.
Salvador said that he had also served in several committees since joining APC, saying he was among those saddled with screening House of Assembly aspirants before the party’s primaries in 2019.

The Niger State House of Assembly yesterday granted Governor Abubakar Bello approval to access a N25billion Sukuk bond.
The lawmakers had asked the governor to provide the duration of the repayment plan and sought more information regarding some of the road projects to be embarked upon.
In a response to their request through a letter read on the floor of the House by the Speaker, Alhaji Abdullahi Wuse, the governor noted that the tenure of the Sukuk bond was not more than seven years.
The governor also gave a breakdown of the locations of the RAMP roads totalling 235.19km as requested by the lawmakers.
The lawmakers thereafter unanimously gave the governor the green light to access the N25 billion Sukuk bond through a voice vote without referring it to the relevant committee for further scrutiny as was the practice.
The governor had in a correspondence read at plenary on January 16 explained that the government intended to take the bond because of its commitment to the objective of transforming the state.
“The government reviewed its capital intensive development projects and resolved in some high leveraged projects and high impactful visible projects.
“Thus, the government seeks to upgrade, construct and reconstruct some essential roads as well.
“The capital intensive projects which require long term funding will mostly be funded through a N25 billion infrastructure development Sukuk Bond programme
“The letter further stated that the bond would be issued in two tranches of N15 billion and N10 billion consecutively.” it added
Bello had requested the 8th Assembly’s approval to take N21.5 billion Sukuk bond but the request was denied due to what the legislators termed “hidden high costs”.