The house of representatives has resolved to investigate the alleged discrimination in the recruitment of resident doctors at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Cross River state.
During Thursday’s plenary, the house asked the federal ministry of health to suspend Ikpeme Ikpeme, the UCTH chief medical director (CMD), to ensure he does not interfere with the investigation.
The decision followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Igariwey Enwo, the representing Afikpo north/south federal constituency of Ebonyi state and deputy chairman of the house committee on appropriations.
Moving the motion, Enwo said the UCTH CMD rejected a list of 17 newly graduated medical doctors posted to the hospital by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) for their mandatory one-year housemanship.
The lawmaker alleged that the CMD rejected the list on the grounds that 15 of the 17 doctors were of Igbo extraction.
Enwo said despite appeals from the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), the UCTH, and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Cross River, Ikpeme declined to reverse his decision.
He argued that the alleged action violated provisions of the 1999 Constitution, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, tribe, or place of origin.
“By rejecting a bona fide list of medical doctors sent to him by the regulatory body (MDCN) on the grounds of tribe/region, Prof. Ikpeme is in dangerous violation of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that seeks to protect citizens from discrimination on account of tribe and tongue,” the lawmaker said.
The legislator warned that the development could worsen the workforce shortage in Nigeria’s health sector, noting that the country has about 40,000 licensed doctors, far below the estimated 300,000 needed to meet healthcare needs.
He said the CMD’s action encourages brain drain in the health sector and further fractures the nation’s delicate ethnic fault lines, which could lead to divisiveness, insecurity, and instability.
Lawmakers voted in support of the motion when Tajudeen Abbas, the speaker, called for a voice vote.
