The Nigerian Medical Association is to seek more protection “from molestation and boomerang” for doctors who have to treat gunshot victims and report to the police.
Police demand for hospitals to report every gunshot wound treated has pitted doctors against police officers for long, with doctors complaining of wrongful accusation and molestation by the police.
Debate on the issue was heated on a panel during the scientific conference of the Nigerian Medical Association, FCT chapter, in Abuja.
“Any gunshot victim, as far as he is a human being, must be treated,” said Dr Philips Ekpe, chairman of the NMA in the FCT.
“We will be looking for a way where the government will be able to protect the doctors who are going to treat patients with gunshot injuries.
“Some are victims, while some are actually the armed robbers who were shot by police.
By the time you report them to the police…we have a case where the robbers came back and wiped out the [doctor’s] family. This is why sometimes doctors are reluctant to treat and go ahead and report to police. They will treat because they have taken an oath to save lives.”
NMA in the FCT is expected to release a report at the end of its conference, stating its stance on treating gunshot victims and the responsibility of paying for emergency cases.
It said the government should “pay for those accident victims who cannot afford it” after due assessment.
Payment for emergencies is covered by the Basic Primary Health Care Fund, estimated at N55 billion—that’s one percent of the consolidated revenue appropriated in the 2018 budget.
The federal health ministry disbursed N12.7 billion of the Fund—N6.5b to National Health Insurance Scheme; N5.8b to National Primary Health Care Development Agency; and N327 million to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
NMA’s report is also expected to contain recommendations for a “standard operation procedure” to curb the rising rate of suicide, which the association says is “becoming an alarming situation.”
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