‘Entitlement syndrome too much in this country’, Ngige slams doctors over strike notice

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has bemoaned the “entitlement syndrome” which he said has infested every facet of the economy.

Ngige made this claim on Monday, during an interview on AriseTV in reaction to the strike ultimatum issued by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to increase the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS).

The doctors demanded an increment of about 200 percent of their current gross salary.

This, according to them, will be in addition to the new allowances included in the letter written to the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, for the review of CONMESS in 2022.

However, Ngige during the interview said people borrow money to study medical courses in most countries, which they pay back after graduation.

He claimed that it was the reason they don’t leave their countries unlike their counterparts in Nigeria.

Ngige said, “It’s left for the education ministry and universities to fashion out what they can do where we now train people free of charge because they pay N48,000 to N50,000 a session for medical training. Whereas their counterpart abroad pays $100,000 in the US and £78,000 in the UK.

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“They borrowed the money from the bank and when they graduate as medical doctors, they are paying back. That’s why they’re not even leaving their country.

“And here we train you free. I obtained that free training. In fact my own I was even on scholarship. Why won’t I be patriotic to serve my country?

“So you asked that the bill taken to the National Assembly by a member be removed that it is one of the reasons you want to go on strike?

“How can a government tell a member who has done a private member’s bill, it’s not even an executive bill, to withdraw it? You now enlist it as one of the conditions to go on strike. That’s absurd. The sense of entitlement syndrome is too much in this country.”

The House of Representatives, worried by the imminent threat of brain drain in the nation’s health sector, had proposed a bill to address the crisis.

Sponsored by Ganiyu Johnson, representing Oshodi-Isolo Federal Constituency 2 of Lagos State in the House of Representatives, it seeks to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act to prevent Nigerian-trained medical or dental practitioners from being granted full licences until they have worked in the country for at least five years.

The bill has continued to attract opposition from healthcare practitioners.

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