What Obasanjo told Nigerian medical practitioners

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has called on medical practitioners in the country to take into consideration their patients’ plight before embarking on strike.

Obasanjo made the appeal at the opening ceremony of the National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMD) National Executive Council meeting in Abeokuta.

A statement issued by the Special Assistant on Media to the former president, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Friday, said Obasanjo, who was the Father of the Day at the occasion, urged the practitioners to take patients’ condition more paramount in their quest for better welfare.

“A major issue that I always want to talk about whenever I am in your midst, which I told you when you came to visit is the issue of going on strike anytime you want to show your displeasure particularly, government doctors.

“My position is that since the care for your patient is a major ethical issue of your profession, abandoning them to go on strike is even more unethical.

“You should rather fashion another way to show your displeasure and not doing so at the expense of your patients,” Obasanjo said.

The former president also called for the resuscitation of the old central medical store system in order to boost availability of drugs in the country.

“We used to have something like that in the past during the Western region. I don’t know whether we still have it.

” If we don’t, maybe this is time to return to it or have something near it, which will bring efficiency and affordability to our drug chain system,”he said.