The Federal Medical Centre, Yola on Tuesday, debunked claims that medical doctors on mandatory one year national youth service had replaced striking resident doctors at the tertiary health facility.

The centre, which has since assumed the status of a teaching hospital, denied the involvement of corpers posted to the institution as a way to cope with the strike action embarked by National Association of Resident Doctors across the country.

Head of Information Unit at the FMC, Yola, Mohammed Dodo, said it had fewer than five corps members at the health facility.

Condemning a news report which claimed corps members replaced striking resident doctors at the facility, Dodo, who said it is unthinkable, wondered how fewer than five corps members could replace more than 100 principal medical officers and consultants who form the core of its health care professionals at the center.

He said, “Medical care givers at the facility are largely pooled from our corps of consultants. How can corps members, who are even less than five and without prior intensive varied medical experiences, replace over 100 striking professionals in a teaching hospital?”

He also noted that some reports even went as far as saying the late elderstatesman, Ahmed Joda, was attended to by some corps members.

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He clarified that usually when there’s a strike action such as the one embarked upon by resident doctors, the facility relies on several doctors from the rank of principal medical officers(PMO) and above, including consultants with some corps members who are under strict supervision of senior doctors, “doing all that they can to attend to patients.”

Adding that, “The workloads are overwhelming on these category care givers who will also have to cover the duties of the striking doctors.This is to say that the entire service windows still remain open despite the strike action. The admission wards, the Accident and Emergency Unit, the Emergency Paediatric Unit (EPU), the NHIS, the Labour Ward, Laboratories, the Intensive Care Unit and the surgical theatres among other service windows have not stopped. But that is not to say the strike action hasn’t affected our operations. But to say corps members had replaced the core of our medical corps, when there are are no fewer than five corps members, is uncharitable and speculative.”