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Friday, August 22, 2014

Has the job gone?


It is no longer news that the People’ Democratic Party(PDP) led Government has laid off about 16,000 Resident Doctors.

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Courtesy: Lokal_Profil 
In normal climes reasons for such large scale lay off include bankruptcy of the employer, low profitability or other general issues that may necessitate institutional downsizing. However in Nigeria, such an action was precipitated by none of the aforementioned reasons rather a poorly thought out executive fiats similar to those heard during military regime.

Since the reason for such an action by Government   is not due to aforementioned wouldn’t it be circumspect of the Government to weigh such an action carefully.The whole doctors practicing in Nigeria can’t be more than 40,000; consultants, house officers, old doctors and private practitioners inclusive. Out of this number a Government of the “people” decides to sack almost 40% of his doctors’ workforce and possibly 66% of doctors in Federal Civil Service.

So much for the transformation agenda! In a single swipe Government aggravated the already poor effective Doctor: Population ratio. To the Government, decapitation appears to be a better medication for headache. Exhaustive dialogue, pro-activeness and other advanced effective negotiation tools was less appealing compared to sudden dumping of such manpower.

If the Government has the love of the people at heart, before such action a replacement should be waiting. Rather than sack and chase a futile solution of replacing 16,000 highly trained manpower.

It would be interesting as a tax payer to ask where the replacement would come from. Is it from the globally insufficient pool which is much more attracted to very green pasture of Europe and North America? If they even trickle in would they be able cope with infrastructure depleted facilities? Or would the Government be able to pay in a globally competitive manner?

Certainly the Government must resolve issues that precipitated action that led to the punitive action after reversing this draconian action.


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