Nigerian Government Vows Not To Recall Sacked Resident Doctors

                              

Moves by the Nigerian Medical Association and the National Association of Resident Doctors ( NARD ) to pressurize Nigerian government to withdraw the circular suspending residency training programme have fell on deaf ears.

Officials at the Federal Ministry of Health were adamant on reversing the suspension.

The suspension of the residency training programme indirectly means the sack of about 16 000 medical doctors, leaving behind 3000 medical consultants and higher ranking medical personnel to cater for medical services around the country.

The government also lampooned the medical doctors for embarking on protest and demonstration in Abuja, calling their actions as hypocritical.

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Linus Awute, stated this Saturday in an interview with journalists in Abuja.

Awute observed that though the doctors claimed to be on strike, some were working on the field.

He blamed the doctors for the decision by the federal government to suspend residency training for the medical practitioners, including the directive to the managements of public hospitals to find replacement for them.