NMA Decries Govt’s Insensitivity To Strike

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has decried the Anambra government’s “insensitivity’’ to the nine-month strike by doctors in the state.

The doctors are demanding payment of Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) and provision of more up-to-date health facilities in the state.

NMA chairman, Onitsha zone), Dr Livinus Chukwuma,  made the comment at a dinner/award night to mark the end of Physicians’ Week for doctors in the zone.

Chukwuma said that although some big employers among the members had absorbed some of the striking doctors on a temporary basis, the state government should not turn a deaf ear to their demands.

He said that NMA would continue to show solidarity to their members as long as the strike lasted, urging the government to have a change of heart over the matter.

“In our efforts to show solidarity, the private, federal and missionaries’ doctors had to embark on a two-day warning strike in the state last week.”

He observed that “when doctors are on strike, the masses suffer because elected government officials and their relations go to other states or overseas to seek medical attention.’’

The chairman also lamented the spate of kidnapping in the state, as most of the abductions were targeted at doctors.

Dr Okey Umeano, a private medical practitioner, urged the government to be conscious of the state’s health care policy by paying the CONMESS to its doctors.

Umeano reminded the government that the essence of the CONMESS, which was designed by the Federal Government, was to curtail the brain drain in the health sector.

The physician’s week ended with an award to Prof. Lawrence Onyekwe, the Head of Department of Ophthalmology, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Dr S.O. Anosike, a private practitioner.

Other events included health talks, free surgery/medical consultation, visit to motherless babies home and a novelty match between Onitsha-based doctors and lawyers.