Imo: Doctors protest over death of kidnapped colleague

Posted by admin Headlines, Imo, State News Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Members of Imo State branch of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), numbering about 400, on Monday, stormed major streets in Owerri to protest over the death of their colleague, Dr Moses Amakoh, who died in the hands of his kidnappers.

Dr Amakoh, who was a medical director of Specialist Hospital Umugwuma in Owerri West Local Government area of Imo State, was due for retirement on February, 2012, before his death.

Addressing a press conference in Owerri on Monday, the chairman of the NMA, Imo State branch, Dr Okorochukwu Berthelome, accompanied by over 1,000 medical doctors, said with the kidnap and subsequent death of Dr Amako, insecurity in the state had reached an alarming stage that health care delivery in the state was threatened.

The doctors said when they could no longer feel safe to go to work, health care delivery would be affected in the state.

According to them, “why would an underpaid and over-worked medical doctor be a target of kidnap, and why would the doctor’s car be riddled with bullets?”

The doctors noted that there are lots of small firearms in circulation and in the wrong hands as a fallout of do-or-die politicking and civil strife in Nigeria.

The doctors added that the problem of insecurity was fast becoming unbecoming.

-Tribunewp_posts