Doctors, under the aegis of the National Association of Resident Doctors, have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to carry out a forensic audit of the 54 federal tertiary hospitals in the country.
The NARD President, Dr. Prince Dan-Jumbo, who spoke to journalists in Lagos on Monday, said the audit would help to clear or establish allegations of mismanagement of funds and inflated personnel spending that the association leveled against the management of some teaching hospitals.
He stated that the call was part of the association’s resolutions at the end of its National Executive Council meeting held at the weekend at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State. The meeting had the theme, ‘A vibrant residency training programme: An imperative for national development.’
Dan-Jumbo accused chief medical directors of 34 federal health institutions of disobeying a circular issued by the Federal Government that skipping should be implemented for doctors as it was being done for health workers.
According to him, the non-implementation of the circular is responsible for the pockets of strike by resident doctors in tertiary institutions.
Dan-Jumbo said, “Some management of some teaching hospitals have claimed that they do not have funds to pay resident doctors who are supposed to benefit from the policy. But our parent body — Nigerian Medical Association — has directed that these institutions which claim they don’t have the financial backing to commence payment to open their records for forensic personnel audit, they are yet to do so.
“ NARD also wrote to the Ministry of Finance in the past administration that they should audit these hospitals, we were rebuffed by the Federal Ministry of Health to go home and face our studies. But we cannot continue an era whereby people who have been given the mandate to manage these institutions now turn them to private business when Nigerians are in dire need of health care.
“As doctors and stakeholders in the sector who are willing to render service, we cannot fold our hands and watch innocent Nigerians die over the greed and selfish interest of management of these institutions. That is why we are calling on our members to engage with these institutions so as to know their true financial strength and not to ask for any bail out.”
The president warned that if the management of the affected hospitals refused to negotiate with doctors, the ongoing strike might continue until their demands were met.
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