Twelve indigent patients at the University College Hospital, (UCH), Ibadan, had luck smiling on them on Monday as the branch chapter of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), in conjunction with the hospital, paid their bills and granted them bill waivers.
The money, which was to the tune of about N400, 000 was paid to the patients, mostly children who had financial in-capabilities in various wards across the medical, surgical and psychiatry wards of the hospital.
The cash donation, which was done in collaboration with the hospital management, was part of activities to commemorate the MDCAN Annual General Meeting.
The week-long AGM with the theme, “Team Building in Health Management and Leadership in Contemporary Nigeria”, which commenced on Monday, will end on Sunday, September 30, 2018.
MDCAN Chairman, Dr Victor Makanjuola, who was later accompanied by the Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, UCH, Dr Victor Akinmoladun, and other executives of MDCAN, to the patients in the different wards, said they were selected for the gestures after their cases were reviewed and discovered they had difficulties paying for treatment.
He added that despite the non-payment of the salaries of the medical doctors in the last three months, doctors, under the aegis of the association, were undeterred in engaging in the kind gesture while also continuing to delivery clinical services.
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Some of the beneficiaries included a 17-year-old boy, Sanni Akinkunmi Abdullahi, in East One Ward, who received N40,000; one year and five months old baby, Afolabi Oluwaseyi; and a 22-year-old woman, Esther Olaoye, who was delivered of a boy through surgery. The patients got varying amounts based on the decision of the association.
Makanjuola said: “I must also bring to the notice of the general public that we, the Medical and Dental Consultants, as well as some of our younger colleagues (interns) in UCH, have not been paid our allowances and salaries for the past three months. Nevertheless, we have been consistently delivering clinical services.
“This information is important to correct the erroneous belief by the general public that doctors always go on strike for money. The non-payment of salaries has also not prevented us, as an association, from being charitable to the underprivileged”, he stated.
Speaking on the theme of the AGM, the chairman explained that the theme was chosen in recognition of the unhealthy inter-professional rivalry in the health sector, its attendant negative effects on service delivery and health-related indices.