FG may Ban Government Doctors From Engaging in Private Practice

FG may Ban Government Doctors From Engaging in Private Practice

The Federal Government on Wednesday announced that it has set up a committee to review the engagement of government doctors in private practice with the aim of banning such practices.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, told journalist after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council that government had decided to review the participation of government doctors in private practice, the Punch reports.

“A committee has been set up to look extensively into that issue because we want to resolve the issue of what does the law of the land states and what the rule of professional ethics says.

“The law of the land does not allow any public officer to do anything other than farming.

“So, that committee would make appropriate recommendation to government on this important issue which is of considerable interest to quite a number of Nigerians.

“In addition to that, we will also look at the Yayale Ahmed Report which tried to look into the relationship between professional groups in the health sector and the office of the SGF has been mandated to forward a White Paper on the report to the FEC so that, once and for all, government can restore harmony to the health sector,” the minister said.

Adewole added that the council resolved to set up a committee on the structure of the residency programme in the health sector.

“Council also looked at the issue of residency training programme and decided that the training should last for a fixed time of seven years.

“After training for seven years, individuals should exit from the programme so that other people can come in,” he said.

The minister said there are 33 suspected cases of monkeypox (7 of which were announced as having recoveed fully in Bayelsa state), but many of the cases did not fit into the classic prototype of the disease, hence the decision of the Federal Government to take some samples to the laboratory for confirmation.

“Before the end of today (Wednesday) or early tomorrow (Thursday), we should be able to confirm exactly what we are dealing with whether it is truly monkeypox or not. But what is obvious is that we have a disease that is close to the pox family