The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) on Thursday issued a Sept. 30 deadline for the Federal Government to reconstitute the board of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).

The President of the union, Dr Francis Faduyile, gave the deadline at a news conference in Abuja.

Faduyile said that the association’s call for reconstitution of the board was part of the resolutions reached at the just-concluded National Executive Council (NEC)’s meeting of the body at Osogbo in Osun.

He said the NEC had expressed its displeasure over the Federal Government’s inability to reconstitute MDCN, in spite of repeated appeals by the NMA.

Faduyile said that the body found it disheartening that three years after government dissolved the board, it had not deemed it fit to reconstitute a new board.

He said that the Act setting up the MDCN clearly stated that “the council shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession.

“We call on the Federal Government to immediately reconstitute the council to ensure smooth operation of medical practice in Nigeria.

“We have directed the National Officers’ Committee (NOC) to approach the court of law, to seek interpretation of the statement ‘the council shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession as stated in MDCN’s Act Cap. M8’.

“The NOC is further directed to take all necessary actions to ensure that the Federal Government sets up the MDCN council on or before Sept. 30, 2018.

“It is now 10 weeks since President Muhammadu Buhari promised to constitute the council.”

He described the development as worrisome especially at a period when medical practice had become highly unregulated without a functional MDCN.

Faduyile, however, noted that the association had applauded government for launching Nigeria’s first Patients’ Bill of Rights to protect vulnerable Nigerians.

He assured that the NMA would ensure full implementation of the bill, urging government to also consider the introduction of the Health Care Workers’ Bill of Rights. (NAN)