Members of the Nigerian Medical Association yesterday staged a protest at the Lagos state University Teaching Hospital.

The medical doctors who were protesting the sack of 16, 000 resident doctors in the country by the Federal Government, wore their white lab coat and carried different placards with inscriptions such ‘Sack Chukwu, not doctors!’ Sack of 16,000 resident doctors, death sentence for Nigerians! Sack Boko Haram, not doctors’; ‘Sack Ebola, not doctors!’

The state Chairman of the association, Dr. Tope Ojo, who addressed the media, disclosed that the sacking of 16, 000 resident doctors in the country by the Federal Government could paralyze the health sector.

 He said, “The immediate reversal of the sacking of all the 16,000 resident doctors is the minimal demand for us to resume talks with the Federal Government.

“It is not acceptable to us and we will do all we can to defend our profession. They signed several agreements with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and did not fulfil them. That is what they are doing with us. They say they have met 90 per cent of our demands, but it is not true. We will not relent until we have put things in place in our hospitals.”

Ojo also called for the sack of the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu who is advising the president wrongly

The state Chairman of the association also noted that the NMA would not resume any negotiation with the Federal Government until the directive is unconditionally reversed.

Ojo said, “We are aware that this is an attempt by the minister to casualise the doctor’s employment, as Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has done in Lagos State. We will resist it. The President has been given a wrong counsel. No nation can survive by throwing away its specialist doctors.”