NMA Gets New President, Advocates More Secondary Health Institutions


Posted on: Mon 23-05-2022

DR. Uche Rowland Ojinmah has been elected the new president of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA). Ojinmah was elected Saturday night at the association’s 62nd Annual General Conference and Delegates meeting held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Ojinmah, a consultant dermatologist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, secured a total of 319 votes to defeat his opponents: Okoro Kenneth Johnson, who polled 40 votes, and Kingsley Ekweremadu, who polled no votes. He studied medicine and surgery at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Also elected into the National Officers Committee of NMA to run the affairs of the association for the next two years were Jeremiah Israel, publicity secretary; Gbelela Zakariah, financial secretary; Yaqubu Muhammad Yakubu, treasurer; Omokoji Simeon, deputy secretary-general; Onyekwelu Jide Jasper, secretary-general; Adetunji Adenekan, second vice-president; and Suleiman Umar Al-Hassan, first vice-president.

Briefing newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday, Ojinmah said the most important thing for him and his team is to bring unity to the health sector.

The NMA president flayed most governors for establishing tertiary health care centres while neglecting secondary health institutions.

He said: “A lot of governors are jumping into the tertiary health care system, neglecting the secondary health care system of the general hospitals.

“I, therefore, call on governors of states to focus on general hospitals. Except Lagos State, where do you have a functional general hospital? Everybody will go and establish a teaching hospital that they can’t even fund.”