There is panic currently at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, JUTH in Plateau State, North-Central Nigeria, after the management allegedly sacked doctors working with the health institution.
JUTH, which is one of the treatment centres for Coronavirus patients in Plateau State, is currently under tension, following reports of the disengagement of the resident doctors.
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Confirming the development to AIT, President of the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, JUTH branch, Dr. Stephen Lukden, said, “It is true; 25 residents received letters of termination of their residency training and we have information that some will receive theirs in the weeks or months to come. We have not seen this kind of thing before.”
In a letter addressed to the CMD of JUTH, Professor Edmund Banwat, the Association asked the hospital’s management to reverse the termination, describing the action as unjust and illegal.
In the letter signed by Lukden and the General Secretary, Dr. Noel Nnaegbuna, the medics noted that the Medical Residency Training Act (MRTA) 2017, which was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari and gazetted on July 16, 2018, stipulated guidelines on the conduct of residency training programme in the country.
They pointed out that the Federal Ministry of Health had also in a letter dated June 18, 2019, directed all CMDs in federal tertiary health institutions to immediately begin the implementation of the gazetted MRTA Act and wondered why the JUTH management would go ahead to sack the doctors in breach of the Constitution.
Efforts to reach the Chief Medical Director of the hospital for the management side of the story were unsuccessful.
However, the Public Relations Officer of the institution, Bridget Omini, told AIT, that the allegations are not true.
She said the tenure of the resident doctors had already elapsed and was even extended by two months.
The PRO accused the residents doctors of deliberately taken advantage of the COVID-19 situation.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
