The Federal Government has made it clear that it does not support the National Assembly bill aimed at preventing Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioners from being granted full licenses until they have worked for a minimum of five years in the country.
The bill, which was intended to address the issue of brain drain in the Nigerian health sector, recently passed its second reading in the House of Representatives.
However, the Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige stated that the bill cannot prevent anyone from obtaining a full license.
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Speaking to State House Correspondents in Abuja after the Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Ngige described the bill as “not workable” and emphasized that there were other ways to address the issue of brain drain in the country.
He said:
“Nobody can say they will not get a practising licence till after five years, it will run counter to the laws of the land that has established the progression in the practice of medicine. I am a medical doctor. I don’t support that bill.
“When you graduate from medical school you go on a one-year apprenticeship called horsemanship or internship as the case may be. After your internship, you are now given a full licence because prior to that what you have is a provisional licence of registration with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, MDCN.
“So, after that internship, you were signed off by consultants and you became a fully qualified medical doctor to attend to human beings and to work without any supervision again. Supervision then is voluntary.
“Resident Doctors are those who have that full licence and they want to acquire post-graduate speciality and speciality is known like a surgeon, gynaecologists, obstetrics, paediatrics and internal medicine of family medicine. So, they are doctors in training.”
