The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, MDCAN has described it as false and an attempt to denigrate their profession, the recent report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, NBS that Nigerian doctors and other medical professionals of receiving bribes from patients before treatment.
MDCAN, in a statement signed by its President Professor Mohammed Mohammed, said the report is false and an attempt to “denigrate, dent the image and reputation of members of this noble profession before the public within and outside the country.” The President added, “The report is like giving a dog a bad name purposely to hang him and was done in a bad taste because they are not the only workers that work in health institutions either public or private. To us, this unfounded allegation is baseless and unacceptable. We are demanding a total retraction of the so-called report which is meant to portray Nigerian doctors in a bad light.”
“By the time the patients are seeing the doctors in their consulting rooms with face-to-face contact for the first time, they would have gone through layers of other health and non-health workers, where then will the doctors be discussing and demanding bribes with the patients as alleged by NBS.