The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) on Thursday said Abia State Government owed doctors and other health workers at the Abia State Teaching Hospital up to 13-month salaries.
The NMA also said members of the state Hospital Management Board had not been paid for 10 months.
Igbere TV reports that president of the association, Dr. Francis Faduyile made the revelation in Abuja, while reading the communique issued at the end of the 59th Annual General Conference and delegates’ meeting of the NMA, which was held in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
Faduyile noted that the salary of Nigerian doctors was abysmally lower than what their counterparts get in other countries, stating that the NMA would appear at the next meeting of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to discuss the issue with governors.
The NMA Boss disclosed that the Imo State Government pays only 70 percent salaries to doctors and other health workers in the state since September 2015, saying, “the medical body frowns at such development.”
He called on the police and other security agencies to secure the release of two doctors kidnapped in Taraba State — Dr Sunday Oduniya and Dr Audu Sule, adding that the two doctors were still being held even after the ransom demanded was paid.
“We have been working round the clock to ensure the release of the doctors. Unfortunately, after meeting the demands of the kidnappers, they are not released. We believe that with improved security arrangement, our doctors would have been released,” he said.
Faduyile decried what he described as ‘criminalization of Nigerian doctors,’ noting that all grievances relating to the medical and dental practice should be directed to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
