Anti-brain drain bill unworkable, it’s like killing fly with sledgehammer — Ngige

Anti-brain drain bill unworkable, it’s like killing fly with sledgehammer —  Ngige

 Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment, has kicked
against the bill seeking to mandate medical and dental practitioners to
practice for five years in Nigeria before relocating abroad.

 

According to NAN, Ngige spoke to journalists after a federal
executive council (FEC) meeting on Monday.

 

In April, Ganiyu Johnson, an All Progressives Congress (APC)
lawmaker from Lagos, sponsored the bill seeking to amend the Medical and Dental
Practitioners Act 2004, to address the brain drain in the health sector.

 

On Monday, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors
(NARD) announced that it will commence a five-day warning strike on Wednesday,
over the failure of the federal government to meet its demands.

 

The withdrawal of the anti-brain drain bill from the
national assembly is one of the prominent demands of the association.

 

Speaking on the bill, Ngige described it as “unworkable” and
“like killing a fly with a sledgehammer”.

 

He added that the proposed law did not have his support and
urged the legislature to look for “other ways” to curb the brain drain.

 

 “Nobody can say they
(doctors) will not get a practising 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,” the minister said.

 

“I am a medical doctor. When you graduate from the medical
school, you go on 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
surgeons, gynaecologists, obstetrics, paediatrics and internal medicine or
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 members’ 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 the 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 is moved by the 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 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
sledgehammer.

 

“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 a 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 you can bond them if you
want.”

Source: Anti-brain drain bill unworkable, it’s like killing fly with sledgehammer —  Ngige

 - NigerianEye
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