Doctors have demanded police protection for doctors responding to on-call duties or emergencies beyond 7pm in the wake of a spate of abductions they have described as “alarming.”

 

President of Nigerian Medical Association, Dr Kayode Obembe, said “any doctor with responsibility for taking calls after 7pm must be provided with security. 

That is not asking for too much.”

 

The request came after reported abductions of doctors in at least five states-and in one case in Ekiti, a former hospital chief’s wife was kept by kidnappers who demanded N70 million ransom.

 

Explaining how the request could be implemented in both public and private hospitals, Obembe said: “It just means in any hospitals where you have to run 24 hours, where patients can come in at any time, there must be police coverage before you move out to go and take care of that patient, and police covering the hospital that will go with the doctor at that time of the night.”

 

 

“The rate of kidnapping of doctors is very alarming, and one wonders whether government is aware,” Obembe added.

 

Dr Frank Odafen, president of the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria said doctors were “afraid to go out at night to respond to calls from people in distress” and had become “victims of evil men and women in society.”

 

The reports of kidnappings that have come from Ekiti, Rivers, Delta, Oyo, Ondo so far have prompted doctors’ “getting extremely worried about this trend,” said Odafen.

 

by Judd-Leonard Okafor

Daily Trust