Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, and Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Edo State Hospitals’ Management Board, are at loggerheads over alleged corruption in the health sector.

ARD faulted Obaseki on the alleged massive corruption in the health sector in the state.

It also expressed displeasure over Obaseki’s disparaging remarks against medical practitioners in the employ of state  government.

ARD, yesterday in an online statement by its President, Dr. Osayande Edorisiagbon, and the Secretary-General, Dr. Ovbiagele Uaboi, after an emergency meeting of its members, described Obaseki’s comments as vexatious and unsubstantiated.

Obaseki had  earlier condemned the alleged high level of corruption in the healthcare system in the state, noting that his administration would insist on a new order and that doctors must render services to Edo people, to justify their salaries.

Obaseki made the submission during a meeting with medical doctors drawn from Edo Hospitals’ Management Board, Edo Specialist Hospital, Edo Primary Healthcare Agency and the state’s Ministry of Health, which took place at the Government House, Benin.

The  governor stressed that his administration would vehemently resist the old order and chart a new course to improve the healthcare system in the state, adding that the meeting with the medical practitioners was to discuss the way forward for the healthcare system in the state.

ARD, however, declared that it was unaware of any independent panel set up by the  government, where any medical doctor was indicted for financial impropriety.

It said: “If an investigative body was ever set up by Obaseki’s administration, we challenge Edo State government to make its findings public.

“It is a notorious fact that many years ago, Edo State government introduced a direct mode of collection of revenue for services rendered in all government health facilities that effectively makes it impossible for the management of the health institutions to have access to the collected revenue, let alone the medical doctors who render only clinical services.

“Lapses in Edo State government’s revenue-collection process must not be blamed on the medical personnel.

“ARD is aware that the 34 hospitals under the Edo State Hospitals’ Management Board (SHMB) survive on a paltry monthly subvention of about N15 million, while they are able to still generate substantial revenue that is directly collected by Obaseki’s administration.”

The doctors’ association, while commenting on private practice by doctors in government employ, drew the attention of the  governor to the fact that there is an existing law (Regulated and Other Professions (Private Practice Prohibition) Decree No 1 of 1992), which regulates private practice by medical doctors in public service, thereby  exempting  doctors from the ban of public officials from private practice.

The association said: “It is disingenuous to attempt to criminalise and demonise our hardworking medical doctors, whose practice does not conflict with the code of conduct for public officials, as the medical practitioners are already working more than the period required by law.

“It is true that there is an unacceptable disproportionate distribution of medical doctors between the rural and urban areas in Edo State. The association has over the years shouted on the need for the state government to employ more doctors, due to the acute shortage of manpower.”

ARD also reiterated that during Obaseki’s first tenure, he promised to employ about six thousand workers in the health sector, including medical doctors, in order to ameliorate the shortage of manpower in the system, but yet to be effected.