Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Commonwealth Medical Association (CMA) has registered its discontent with the continuous attack on medical doctors and other health care professionals, insisting that such unending attacks could trigger unfriendly reactions from the medical professionals.
CMA observed in a statement by its President, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, that recently, medical professionals have been the target of kidnappers and other criminals for an unjustified reasons.
The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), few weeks ago, expressed dismay with the worsening state of security in Nigeria, and the continued incarceration of two of their Taraba state based colleagues, Dr. Audu Sule and Dr. Sunday Oduniyi, by kidnappers.
NMA President, Dr. Francis Faduyile, told journalists in Abuja, that the National Executive Council of NMA, at its meeting in Kano, registered their concerns with the rising cases of attack on medical doctors and other health care workers.
He said that sustained attacks could be as a result of misconception that medical doctors are as rich as politicians or other businessmen in the society.
The CMA President, alongside the NMA also expressed sadness over the gruesome
murder of a Professor of paediatrics and the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), of the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Jerome Elusiyan, who was killed by unknown gunmen on his back from a clinical examination of undergraduate medical students of Ambrose Ali
University, Edo State.
Dr. Enabulele described the death as one too many for Nigeria and its health care community. He called on Nigerian government immediately to conduct an urgent appraisal of security situation with a view to strengthening the security system through deployment of more effective security measures, along with the concrete address of other social determinants.
He also called for strengthening of security measures in the health workplace to
safeguard few numbers of medical doctors and other health professionals currently working
in Nigeria (their fatherland), so as not to lose them to more secured and receptive environment.
Dr. Enabulele, however, condoled with the immediate family of Prof. Elusiyan, whose burial rites began on Thursday, the Nigerian government, NMA and the Nigerian health community, over the lost, and prayed for comfort and eternal repose of the soul of the deceased.