The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has given the federal government till Jan 31, 2024, to implement the upward review of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS. President of the association, Dr Uche Ojinmah, gave the ultimatum on Sunday during the closing ceremony of the association’s National Executive Council, NEC, meeting in Abuja. Ojinmah stressed that the association cannot guarantee industrial harmony after the ultimatum if the government fails to meet their demands amongst which is the upward review of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure. While stressing how doctors have been making great sacrifices he further urged the government to implement the newly approved accruement allowance with arrears from June 2022.
The NMA called on the federal government to put mechanisms in place to enable private hospitals to attend to emergency cases.
He commends the government‘s directive for all cases of medical emergencies to be treated by doctors in private and public hospitals, adding that questions therefore arise on who pays the bill for the emergency cases, especially for private hospitals.
The NMA president said that private hospitals were purposely opened for business, adding that where things were done properly, the government should have a universal health coverage (UHC) mechanism where health insurance takes care of emergency cases.
He said, “The basic healthcare fund is supposed to take care of the first 48 to 72 hours of emergency for every Nigerian, this has not been implemented till today. So if you asked a private practitioner to treat people freely, he won’t do that. These are issues that should be untangled before we start issuing directives.
“Every private hospital is open for business; some are even running on loan, so let’s stop paying lip service to emergency healthcare and do the right thing.’’
Ojinmah added that medical doctors were also ready to comply with the directive to treat gunshot injury patients without police reports.
