Lagos State Governor
Babatunde Fashola yesterday explained why 34 of the 788 sacked doctors were
reinstated.Fashola said the gov-ernment took the decision following the appeal
made by the reinstated doctors. He, however, urged oth-ers to emulate their col-leagues
by appealing for reinstatement.Stressing that the sack-ing of the doctors was
not his own making, the governor said that by the virtue of his position, he
lacks the power to fire or hire doctors. Fashola said only the Health Service
Commis-sion (HSC) is saddled with the responsibility of de-termining the fate
of the doctors.Fashola spoke at a live panel discussion on the state owned
television sta-tion (LTV8) to commemo-rate his 5th anniversary in office and
Democracy Day.
The discussion pro-gramme had among the panelists the Deputy
Man-aging Director of the SUN Newspapers, Mr. Femi Ad-esina; Editor of THISDAY
Newspaper, Mr. Simon Kolawole; renowned Talk Show presenter Agatha Amata and a
seasoned broadcaster, Aderoju Ade-poju.Reaffirming his inabil-ity to recall the
sacked doctors, Fashola said only the HMC has the power to do so, noting that
he has made efforts to ensure a fi-nal resolution to the crisis through the
recall of the 34 doctors.
Fashola said: “I can’t reverse the sack, it is not in my powers to
do so, I won’t be able to do so, just as I cannot effect their pro-motion, it
is the HMC that will promote them and I won’t be here after three years, so
it’s not about me, it’s about institutions.“
Anyone who appeals should be recalled, but they (sacked doctors)
have to take the step. Let the doctors’ go to their em-ployers and resolve the
is-sue, any doctor who still wants to remain can have his job back, engage with
your employers.
”On allegation of reneg-ing on the agreement the state government
had with doctors, he said the gov-ernment has bent back-wards to ensure that
the doctors are comfortable due to the important ser-vice they provide.
But the Nigerian Medi-cal Association (NMA) condemned the
reinstate-ment of the 34 sacked doc-tors, describing it as
“pro-paganda.”Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos yester-day, the state
Chairman of the NMA, Dr Edamisan Temiye, said that the re-instated doctors were
not among the initially sacked ones as some were on leave and others on study
leave when the lingering crisis erupted.
“We have it on author-ity that these doctors were neither sacked
nor que-ried,” he said.Temiye accused the state government of being unwilling
to end the crisis as every effort to mediate in the matter has ended in
deadlock.“
The governor is not ready to act. Is it possible for the Head of
Service and the Lagos State Uni-versity Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, board to
sack all its consultants without his approval?“Is it possible to sack two
thirds of a group of professionals without the governor’s approval?
If the answer is no, then the governor has deceived all Lagosians
and if the governor does not have power over people that he has selected to
work for him then it is very sad,” he said.