Angela Onwuzoo
The leadership of the Healthcare Providers Association of Nigeria and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors have backed the call by the Nigerian Medical Association asking the National Assembly to come up with a law that will criminalise violence against healthcare workers in the country.
Recall that the NMA made the call following the murder of one of its members, Dr. Uyi Iluobe, who was reportedly killed by relatives of his patient at a hospital in Oghara, Delta State on December 31st, 2022.
Speaking with Reportr Door HealthWise, the National President of HCPAN, Dr. Austin Aipoh said the law was long overdue, lamenting that attacks on health practitioners by patients’ relatives have assumed a worrisome dimension in recent times.
Aipoh said, “Attacks on health workers by relatives of deceased patients have been on but not on this large scale.
“The truth is that it has been happening but not of this magnitude. It has reached this level where a relative of the patient has to assault the doctor or health workers physically or take the life of a doctor.
“It is very appalling. When there is a law, Nigerians and the public will now abide by the law. But when there is no law, people begin to do things anyhow and nobody suffers any consequences.”
The physician said a law that will make it an offence to attack health workers in the course of caring out their duties to patients would help checkmate the excesses of patients’ relatives.
“If we have a law protecting health workers, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, lab scientists, and all the like, then anybody who goes to attack them in the course of doing their job will suffer some consequences.
“So, it is a very good call by the Nigerian Medical Association because right now, there is no law protecting health workers in Nigeria.
“If anybody injures or kills the health worker, the person will go unpunished because no law says you cannot touch the health worker. The law will go a log in curbing attacks on health workers by patients and their relatives,” he explained.
The public health physician said that the attack on health workers had further worsened the acute brain drain in the health sector.
Aipoh noted, “If we have a law by the National Assembly then it will be clear, people will now know that if you assault a health worker or any health practitioner, you can go to jail.
“People would now learn. People should know that it is God that gives lives, doctors only try their best to save lives.
“No doctor or any health practitioner wants somebody to die because they are not going to gain anything if somebody is dead.
“Ours is to save lives and if in the process of saving lives and some lives were lost because of the type of illness or ailment that the person had, then, relatives should not vent their anger on the doctor as it was not the doctor that killed the patient.
“This is important especially now that we are trying to encourage doctors to stay in Nigeria. Nobody wants to stay and if you don’t have doctors in any country that country will suffer.”
The public health physician said it would be difficult for hospitals in the country to provide adequate security for all the health workers.
According to him, it is the responsibility of the government to do so.
“In Nigeria, you are not expected to carry a gun. The only thing health practitioners can do is to have people around them in case of any assaults.
“The responsibility falls on the government to protect the doctors just the way they protected other persons,” he added.
On the issue of medical practitioners requiring a police report before treating patients with a gunshot wound, the HCPAN leader explained,” The law in Nigeria now says that if a doctor has a case of a gunshot, he will treat if he can treat and then, call in the police.
“If you can’t treat, you can only give first aid and refer. Now you can treat a patient with a gunshot wound first and get the police report later.
“When doctors refer patients based on their expertise, it is wrong for the relatives of the patient to vent their anger toward the doctor.
“Nigerians need enlightenment to know that a doctor does not know everything. There are areas where he can work, there also are areas where he cannot work.”
Aipoh also called for mass enlightenment of Nigerians to further curb the menace of attacks on health workers.
Also speaking with our correspondent, the National President of NARD and Senior Registrar, Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, Federal Medical Centre Umuahia, Abia State, Dr. Emeka Orji, also decried the rise in attacks on medical practitioners in the country.
Orji corroborated the HCPAN president’s statement saying, “We agree with our parent body. We believe the legislation will help address the problem. But you will agree with me that it is a long-term plan. But something has to be done now to tackle the problem. There should be an arrangement to secure the hospitals.”
Recall that a relative of a patient allegedly murdered the late Dr. Uyi Iluobe on 31st December 2022 when the late doctor demanded that the relatives first get a police report and in the process, the patient died.
Similarly, it was reported that an angry father and son had on 21 December 2022 descended heavily on a medical doctor and a nurse at the Federal Medical Centre, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta after losing their family member.
Pandemonium broke out at the emergency ward of the hospital shortly after a 53-year-old female patient died.
Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, Ogun State Chapter, Dr. Kunle Ashimi said that the father and son slapped the doctor while the death of their relative who died of heart failure was announced to them.
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