Dissolution Of Medical And Dental Council

hehehe....make them nor try am oooo....Recently, the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN) raised objection over the dissolution of Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) by President Muhammadu Buhari. According to the council, the dissolution will not only promote quackery in the health sector, it will allow cases of malpractices to continue unabated.

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 Making a case for its reinstatement, President of NPMCN, Prof. Rasheed Arogundade argued that MDCN be exempted as was in the case of the Universities Governing Councils because such premature dissolution had caused disastrous consequences in the past. Definitely, we are in line with this plea because as a regulatory body set up by statute, the dissolution of MDCN is the same as stopping all the functions.

For example, the Council’s functions include medical education, accreditation of professional institutions, maintenance of standards, enforcement of discipline and monitoring of health institutions that are training doctors all over the country among others. We recall that the board of MDCN has been dissolved several times in the past 20 years and which is responsible for the unsavoury developments and instability in medical education, practice and discipline in the country. For the avoidance of doubt, the Medical and Dental professions are regulated by the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act Cap 221, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1990 and prescribes the kind of sanction that could be imposed on a medical doctor who is found liable for misconduct.

Without the council, there is no regulation for medical colleges and medical curriculums to train doctors, even as there will be no disciplinary body to sanction unethical conduct. Incidentally, dissolution of the council not only had devastating and detrimental consequences to both the professions and society, it encouraged sub-standard medical and dental schools, even as programmes were granted accreditations; thus producing incompetent practitioners.

In addition, curricula for education remained un-reviewed and updated for decades; codes of ethics remained obsolete and could not meet the challenges of time while practitioners engaged in unethical conducts without trials and sanctions. We believe the council and other professional regulatory bodies should be shielded from political influences, as meddling with its functions will be detrimental to the medical profession.

In a country where the ratio of medical practitioners is still well below the accepted international standards, it would amount to encouraging all manner of quacks into the profession if the recent council dissolution holds. In the end, it will be detrimental to the health of Nigerians and the reputation of the country. Ironically, with the government action, it means that any unaccredited institution can go on to enrol and graduate unqualified dentists and other medical practitioners. It is pertinent to point out that one of the reasons given by well to do Nigerians for travelling overseas for medical treatment is that the country not only lacks modern and well equipped hospitals, the medical practitioners also do not meet up to world standards.

It would therefore amount to compounding the matter if the institution duly accredited to rectify such perceived anomalies gets caught in the anvils of politics and is disbanded by an administration that promises to address all deficiencies plaguing the country. Before now, Nigerians have been calling on the government to direct all political officeholders to henceforth seek medical attention in Nigeria and ban them from going overseas for treatment. 

Nevertheless, the dissolution of the agency in charge of regulating those manning our health institutions would give grist to the arguments of those flouting such order. We therefore appeal to the Federal Government to reinstate the existing council of MDCN that has barely spent one and half years of the statutory four years.

By: Dailytimes