Rivers state House of Assembly has been urged to domesticate the law on residency for doctors which have already been assented to by President Buhari.
Chairman Health institutions in the federal House of representative representing Ahoada-East/Abua-Odual constituency Mrs Betty Apiafi, stated this during a town hall meeting organized by the
Nigerian medical Association (NMA) Rivers state branch to commemorate the 58th Annual General meeting.
According to her, the law addresses all issues affecting the medical workforce, adding that the residency bill makes provisions for resident doctors to be trained by the health institutions.
“We need to work with the house of assembly and I will also work with them to make sure they adopt the residency bill so that we start the teaching hospital in Rivers state on a clean slate without any strike action.
“The residency bill makes provisions for funding ratios, documents, that bill actually addresses all the issues they have raised regarding their entry point, payments, residency, examinations, so we are happy that the president assented to that bill”
Also speaking, special adviser to the governor on primary health care, George Opuda, said that the state government is currently working on health finance insurance that will leverage the budgetary challenges facing the medical sector.
“If we have health finance insurance that is properly run, the guidelines are clearly laid out and this health insurance put in place is well managed and accounted for, it will go along way in bridging the gap in health care funding”
On his part, chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, Dr Datonye Alasia, called on the executives of the association in the state to speedily transmit the draft of the Rivers state’s contributory health protection program bill to Rivers state House of Assembly for speedy passage.
“We are happy to know that the state has commenced the Rivers state contributory health program which is supposed to be a mandatory scheme for all resident doctors in the state.
“With the government providing funding to take care of the vulnerable groups, we commend the government for appropriating two per cent of its total budget for 2018 so that the process of health insurance and structured health financing which will ultimately lead to universe health coverage and improving the health indices for citizens in the state are taken care of”
