NMA offers to help probe Suntai’s health status

Taraba State Governor, Mr. Danbaba Suntai

The Nigerian Medical Association  has offered to set up a medical board to  ascertain the fitness or otherwise of  Governor  Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State.

The NMA, which  might  on Monday (today) give  the Federal Government a 21-day ultimatum to address the  challenges  in the health sector, explained that the outcome of the board’s finding(s) would put to rest, the controversy over Suntai’s state of health.

Suntai, a pharmacist, returned to the country on August 25, after a 10-month medical sojourn in Germany and the United States. The governor, who looked frail  and was aided to alight from a chartered aircraft that flew him into the country, was neither able to speak with journalists nor the people of the state.

Following  speculations that he had not recovered fully, he eventually  made a broadcast to the people of the state via a recorded  videotape  aired by the Taraba State television. A day after this,  principal officers and some members of the state House of Assembly, who visited him , advised him to return to the US for further treatment.

But the NMA, in a statement by  its President, Dr. Osahon Enabulele and Secretary-General, Dr Akpufuoma Pemu, said it was “deeply concerned with the anxiety and imbroglio occasioned by the fitness or otherwise of  Governor  Suntai.”

The statement  was issued at the end of its National Executive Council meeting in Sokoto and obtained by The  PUNCH on Sunday in Abuja. The  theme of the NEC meeting  was “Promoting Medical Check-ups as key to preventing sudden deaths.”

 The NMA  however  welcomed the governor back home and advised “the parties involved in the quagmire to sheath their swords and abide by the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.”

“NMA is very prepared to make available her expert members who are professionals in various fields of medicine to constitute a medical board to resolve the lingering question of the medical fitness of the governor’’ it added.

The association  renewed its call on the Federal Government and National Assembly to establish the Office of the Surgeon-General of the Federation which  would be charged with the responsibility of independently assessing the medical fitness of public and political office holders.

 It said this  would  “save the nation the great embarrassment caused by the question of the medical fitness or otherwise of our public and political leaders.”

The NMA NEC also resolved to issue a 21-day ultimatum with effect from Monday (today) to the Federal Government  to tackle the myriad of challenges and anomalies in the nation’s  health  sector.

Among the contentious issues, according to NMA, is “the ongoing destruction of the fabric of professionalism and hierarchical order in Nigeria’s public hospitals and the health sector.”

The NMA said it was committed to the enthronement of professionalism and international best practices.

The NEC  called on all Nigerians, including public and political office holders, to regularly consult their licensed medical doctors/dentists for health checks.

It  also restated its earlier call on the government to declare a public holiday for health check-ups in  the country , laced with some incentives.

The NMA flayed the  delay in the inauguration of the Governing Board of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, despite several  appeals by other stakeholders.

The association said, “The NMA remains greatly handicapped by the fact that there is currently no judge/Council Chairman to preside over investigated cases brought before it. The Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act provides that only the chairman of council shall preside over the tribunal (which has the status of a high court).

“Over the last 10 years, the governing board of the MDCN has cumulatively not been in place for more than four years. The last council was dissolved in 2010 with no replacement since then. All calls made to government to inaugurate the council have so far not yielded any result.

“The implication of this is that the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Tribunal is non-existent in the country today; a situation akin to a country without Police Criminal Investigation  Department  and justice system. How well Nigerian medical practice is regulated today, including the fight against quackery and other unwholesome practices, are better imagined than experienced.”

The NMA therefore restated its call on President Goodluck  Jonathan not to delay any further  in  directing  the inauguration of  the MDCN to enable it perform its statutory   functions.