Federal government has rejected a bill before the House of Representatives, proposing an amendment to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) Act, supposedly to curb the menace of brain drain in the country.
The minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Monday after the extraordinary Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa.
He spoke on the threat by National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to embark on a five-day warning strike over issues bordering on their welfare, including an alleged plan to prevent them from obtaining a practicing licence for five years after qualifying as doctors.
It would be recalled that a member of the House of Representatives, Hon Ganiyu Johnson, representing Oshodi/Isolo II Federal Constituency, has sponsored the bill labeled "A Bill for an Act to Amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, Cap. M379, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004."
The bill aimed "to mandate any Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioner to practice in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted a full licence by the Council in order to make quality health services available to Nigerians; and for related matters (H B.2130)."
However, the minister said the bill will go against extant labour laws, adding that he did not support it and will not support it.
"Nobody can say they (doctors) will not get a practice licence till after five years. It will run counter to the laws of the land that have established the progression in the practice of medicine.
"I am a medical doctor. When you graduate from medical school, you go on a one year apprenticeship called housemanship or internship as the case maybe. After your internship, you are now given a full licence because prior to that, what you have is a provisional licence of registration with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
"So, after that intensive training, you were signed off by consultants and you became a fully qualified medical doctor to attend to human beings and to work without any supervision again. Supervision then is voluntary.
"Resident doctors are those who have that full licence and they want to acquire post graduate speciality and speciality is known like surgeon, gynecologists, obstetrics, paediatrics and internal medicine of family medicine. So, they are doctors in training.
"The bill in the National Assembly cannot stop anybody from getting a full licence. That bill is a private member's bill.
"In the National Assembly they attend to private members' bills and executive bills. Executive bills emanate from the government into the National Assembly with a stamp of the executive.
"It is either sent by the Attorney General of the Federation or by the President but usually from the Attorney General of the Federation. So, it's not an executive bill, it's a private members bill.
"That bill was moved by a man from Lagos. So, members of his constituency can tell him this is worrying us. Can't we check these doctors this way by you going to speak rather than put up a document?
"That document is, as far as I am concerned, not workable. Ab initio, I don't support it and I will never support it. Like I said before, it is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer.
"They should think of other ways if they are trying to check brain drain, there should be other ways.
"If a doctor has read on scholarship, you bond him, if a doctor has read on bursary you can bond him. If a doctor is trained like we are doing now on little or nothing which is like scholarship again because N50,000 a session per medical student is nothing when their counterparts overseas pay seventy thousand pounds for a session.
"So, I don't support that bill but can bond them if you want", he said.
On a warning strike threatened by NARD, the minister said it is not necessary since the government was already engaged with the NMA, their umbrella body.
"On the demand for a 200 per cent salary increase, the NMA is the father of all doctors in Nigeria and they have about four or five affiliates of which the resident doctors is an association affiliated there.
"You have the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MEDCAN), they are the consultants who are training these medical doctors to become specialists. You also have general medical practitioners association and you also have doctors working in the private sector.
"So, NMA is the father of all, including me. So, NMA is discussing with the Federal Ministry of Health, salaries income and wages commission and the Ministry of Labour and we know that NMA has accepted a salary increase between 25 and 30 per cent across board for their members.
"So, I don't know the logic by which people who are members of NMA are now coming up to say pay us 200 per cent increase. I don't understand it.
"I have called the NMA President to contact them because on the issue of remuneration negotiation, it's NMA that the government deals with. So, I have told the President of NMA to contact them and we will engage them. They should not go on any strike, it's not necessary", he said.
Meanwhile, the extraordinary FEC meeting has approved the Universal Implementation of the Employee Compensation Act (ECA) 2010 following a memorandum presented by his ministry.
According to the minister of labour and employment, the law is operated by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), adding that it is a replacement of the old Employee Compensation Act that was known as "Workmen Compensation".
According to him, the Council has approved it for universal implementation, "meaning that apart from the private sector, that is already implementing, the public sector, which is government; federal, state and local governments, have now to adopt this for the protection of their workers.
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"The Act provides that the worker who is injured or had an accident or contacted a disease or disabled or dead in the course of work, should be compensated, remunerated and even the family, pay something when the man is no longer there. It didn't make provision for some of the children to be schooled or educated, up to the age of 21.
"So today is a good day for the Nigerian workers because the decent work agenda that is contained in Convention102 of the ILO has a major branch on what they call workers' protection in the course of work.
"So, this is the law and Nigeria has today directed that all workers in the ministries,
departments and agencies of the federal government should be covered with a percentage contribution. It's an insurance premium, one percent of remuneration. You pay it and it insures your worker against these workplace accident injuries.
"That is what the council passed today and directed the minister of finance and the budget office of the federation to make provision for it in annual budget as social contributions. Under the subject of Social Contributions in our annual appropriation, as of today, you only have two items there; number one is Pension Contribution of employers. Second one is the Health Insurance Scheme by the employer," he said.
