The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), has opposed the proposed five-year compulsory service for Nigerian medical and dental practitioners before being eligible by the granting of a full license which passed second reading at the House of Representatives.

 

Speaking on Wednesday April 12, the NMA President, Dr Ojinma Uche said the bill is not the solution to the pending crisis in Nigeria’s healthcare system. He told Channels Television’s Politics Today that the proposed bill is not a the solution, in his words, Dr Ojinma Uche whose picture is shown above said;

 

“You will discourage young medical students from reading Medicine. My own fear now is that it may have spooked the doctors that will be planning to leave in a year to start leaving immediately, before they are clamped down,” he stated.

 

“If you now decide that Nigerian doctors cannot have full or permanent license for five years after graduation, automatically, you have made them house officers for five years.”

It worth mention that the bill which will mandate all Nigerian doctors and dentists to work in Nigeria for a minimum of 5yrs before they get their license, was brought up by the HOR as solution to curb the mass exodus of of doctors and other healthcare workers who leave Nigeria to travel abroad in search of greener pastures