Posted on: Thu 22-10-2020

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has called on federal and state governments to ensure smooth movement and safety of doctors and other health workers during this period especially as many states are declaring 24 hours curfew.

NARD said its members are ready to offer expert management of injured Nigerians where necessary in all the State and federal Tertiary Health facilities across the country.

The president of the association, Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi expressed concern over the increasing unrest in the country and called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the National Assembly to speak to Nigerians and address the legitimate demands of the protesters.

“We join all men of good value to condemn the recent spate of killing of unarmed innocent Nigerians,” Okhuaihesuyi said in a statement .

“We join the good people of Nigeria to demand that the military be removed from our streets and the police be refrained from shooting at unarmed citizens rather they should protect the innocent citizens who have the constitutional right to protest.

“We want to categorically state that we stand with other Nigerians on the #end SARS campaign. Doctors have also been at the receiving end of this dastardly act by members of the now defunct Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS).”

The NARD president called on protesters to conduct themselves peacefully and not to allow thugs and miscreants to take advantage of this protest.

He said, ”We also insist they put in place infection prevention methods to prevent the resurgence of Covid 19. In addition we insist that appropriate infection prevention control measures be put in place. This is imperative so as not to allow the twin menace of SARS 1 and SARS 2 continue to take away the lives of our hardworking and energetic youth. Nigerians are running away from this country in their numbers because of a lot of reasons including insecurity. Let us not make an already bad situation worse by giving the rest of us more reasons to run away.

“Our healthcare system is already overstretched to an elastic limit by COVID 19. We should not stretch it more with trauma and gunshot cases as it’s been witnessed yesterday in Lekki, Lagos Nigeria.

We call on NMA not to continue with the Physician week in solidarity with the #end SARS campaign and as a mark of respect to those who have lost their lives so far in this protest. We can’t celebrate when our patients are dying.”

Source: Guardian

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