FG has proposed new retirement age for doctors in Nigeria.
News Online reports that President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government has announced that it is proposing to increase the retirement age to 65 years for normal health workers and doctors, and 70 years for consultants, in a bid to keep health workers in Nigeria.
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This, News Online understands was disclosed by the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, in a meeting between the Presidential Committee on Salaries (PSC), relevant Federal Government stakeholders, Health Sector Professional Associations, and Trade Unions on Tuesday in Abuja.
What Ngige is saying about the proposed retirement age for health workers
“We have taken their proposal. The government side will firm up its own proposal and we are reconvening June 1, so that we can have an agreed hazard allowance for health workers in Nigeria.
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We also discussed the issue of retirement age for health workers, being that we want to keep our health workers here in Nigeria. A lot of people are coming here to poach and take away people we have trained at very great cost.
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It takes a lot of funds to train a medical doctor, nurse or even a laboratory technologist or physiotherapist. So, we want to retain them here,” Ngige said.
The Minister added that health workers could be retained for a longer period, citing a proposed retirement age of 65 for health workers and doctors and 70 years for consultants. He revealed that the FG had called back retired health workers during the pandemic, and delayed retirement age by six months for health workers to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
What you should know
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The FG’s proposal to keep health workers is a complete u-turn from an earlier strategy, as Nairametrics reported in 2019 that the Labour Minister had said he was not bothered about the decision of some medical doctors who chose to leave Nigeria to practice outside the country.