The Federal Government has challenged the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to enforce professional discipline, uphold ethical standards and make industrial action a genuine last resort as part of a proposed mutual undertaking to rebuild trust in Nigeria’s health sector.
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Adekunle Salako, made the call on Wednesday in Abuja at the opening of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the NMA, saying doctors must accept responsibility for the aspects of healthcare delivery within their control.
Salako said the NMA should ensure that emergency services were not withdrawn during industrial disputes, lead the fight against quackery, promote ethical conduct and strengthen inter- and intra-professional collaboration.
He said: ‘From the NMA, this administration asks: institutional discipline against unethical conduct; industrial action as a genuine last resort with emergency services never withdrawn; leadership of the anti-quackery campaign at state and local level; inter- and intra-professional respect and ethical conduct befitting of the leader of the health team.’
The Minister, however, stressed that the Federal Government was not seeking to shift responsibility to doctors or evade its own obligations, saying government must equally be held accountable for delivering on its commitments to health workers and the health system.
He therefore proposed a reciprocal undertaking under which the government would be required to honour collective bargaining agreements, sustain the upward trajectory of health-sector funding, improve the flow of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), protect health workers at their duty posts, expand training capacity without compromising accreditation and give the NMA a voice in decisions on health workforce and scope of practice.
‘So let me propose an exchange of undertakings. From government you may hold us to: honouring our commitments and the Collective Bargaining process; sustaining the health budget’s upward trajectory and the flow of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund; protecting you at your duty post through the aggravated-offence legislation; expanding training capacity with accreditation intact; and giving the NMA a seat where health workforce and scope-of-practice decisions are actually made,’ he said.
Salako said the two-way commitment was necessary because neither government nor the medical profession could transform the health system independently.
He said the government had taken steps to demonstrate its own commitment, citing increased health-sector funding, recruitment of healthcare workers, improved incentives and expanded medical training.
According to him, the health sector’s share of the national budget has risen to 5.2 percent, while BHCPF funding increased from ?131.5 billion in 2024 to ?299 billion in 2026.
He added that more than 37,000 workers had been recruited into federal tertiary hospitals since 2024, about 75 percent of them in clinical positions, while annual medical school admission quotas had doubled from about 5,000 to 10,000.
The Minister said ?110 billion had also been committed through TETFund to rehabilitate 18 medical, dental, pharmacy and nursing training institutions.
He said the government had adopted a National Policy on Health Workforce Migration and was also pursuing initiatives to strengthen collaboration with Nigerian health professionals in the diaspora.
Salako, however, said government investment and policy interventions could lose their impact if patients continued to encounter poor professional conduct in health facilities.
He urged the NMA to strengthen clinical governance, including mortality and morbidity reviews, maternal and perinatal death surveillance, monitoring of waiting times and consultant availability, as well as effective disciplinary processes.
On quackery, the Minister called on doctors to work with government agencies to identify and expose unlicensed practitioners, noting that the profession often knew about such activities within its communities.
He disclosed that NAFDAC had screened more than 7,000 shops and removed 87 truckloads of falsified, banned and expired medical products, valued at about ?1 trillion, from open drug markets in Aba, Onitsha and Lagos.
Salako also defended task-shifting and task-sharing as necessary responses to Nigeria’s shortage of health professionals, but said such arrangements must be competency-based, regulated, supervised and restricted to clearly defined scopes of practice.
He urged the NMA to resolve disagreements over professional roles through established institutional and regulatory channels rather than through the media or withdrawal of services.
The Minister said the proposed undertaking was ultimately about establishing shared responsibility, with government and doctors each accepting accountability for the areas within their control.
‘No health system in history has been transformed by a Ministry acting alone, and none has been transformed against the wishes of its doctors,’ he said.