Association Bans Call Duty Beyond 24 Hours For Resident Doctors

Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has taken steps to support its members from excessive enactment load, declaring an extremity to telephone work beyond 24 hours.

In a connection issued astatine the extremity of its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and signed by its president, Dr Mohammad Usman Suleiman; secretary-general, Dr Shuaibu Ibrahim; and publicity and societal secretary, Dr Abdulmajeed Yahya Ibrahim, NARD described prolonged telephone work arsenic a “silent killer” that has led to the untimely decease of galore young doctors successful the country.

“If we bash not safeguard ourselves, who will? To this end, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) hereby directs that, with effect from October 1, 2025, each nonmigratory doctors crossed the state shall cease taking continuous calls beyond a twenty-four-hour period,” NARD said.

The doctors said the concern inevitably leads to accrued aesculapian errors owed to burnout, endangering patients’ information and severely damaging doctors’ mental, physical, and intelligence well-being. They lamented that excessively often, nonmigratory doctors sacrifice their wellness and sometimes their lives successful work to their patients.

Highlighting the country’s worsening doc shortage, NARD drew attraction to the World Health Organisation’s recommended doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:600, compared with Nigeria’s alarming 1:9,083 ratio.

With lone astir 11,000 nonmigratory doctors serving an estimated 240 cardinal people, doctors successful the state are forced to enactment utmost hours, NARD lamented. It added that nonmigratory doctors enactment an mean of 106.5 hours per week, with surgical residents logging implicit 122.7 hours weekly.

The relation warned that the unsustainable workload risks patients and devastates doctors’ wellness and household lives. “The achy question remains:

Who cares for their families and dependents aft their passing? How galore much lives indispensable we suffer earlier decisive enactment is taken?” NARD asked.

As portion of its resolutions, NARD urged the national authorities to instantly instrumentality a one-to-one replacement argumentation to trim doctors’ crushing workload and found wide regulations to curb excessive telephone hours successful enactment with planetary champion practices.

While acknowledging the contributions of doctors who proceed to service successful the state contempt the planetary encephalon drain, the relation stressed the request for protection, just remuneration, and reforms to safeguard the profession.

On the nation’s Independence Day, NARD said it was indispensable to observe Nigeria’s advancement and bespeak connected the sacrifices of nonmigratory doctors.