According to SaharaReporters, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has refused petitions for redeployment from the south by several southern corps members, namely physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals.
The medical corps members are worried about their lives due to the insecurity in the northern region where cases of Boko Haram, herdsmen and banditry violence have worsened in recent times.-Advertisement-
One of them, a young doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told SaharaReporters that the relocation forms were filled by the corps members who had health issues while some wanted to redeploy for the sake of insecurity in the region.
However, he said they were denied redeployment from the North. Lately corps members are being deployed to meet the needs of the health care system in the region, owing to the state government’s failure to employ more doctors and nurses.
He noted that there were hardly any provisions made for the corps members in terms of accommodation and security.
He said, “The country’s insecurity has affected various states in Nigeria, and it is becoming alarming. This is to the Director-General of NYSC; please allow all corps members to relocate or redeploy to their states of choice.
“We expect that when posted to a camp, and after you manage to spend three weeks in camp, you should be able to relocate to your state of choice irrespective of your state of origin or course of study because the country is unstable right now.
“The NYSC DG has made relocation difficult for doctors, nurses, medical laboratory scientists and pharmacists and people who studied some other courses.
“We observe that this failed government is using these sets of people in place of doctors and nurses that ought to be in the system. The government has refused to employ workers, so corps members in the medical profession are used in hospitals as the major staff members instead of a support system.
“They have refused to relocate us to where we want to go because it feels safe for us. At a time like this, we need to be around our family or relatives and not just in any state, so it is so wrong to disapprove our relocation requests.
“I believe we have just one life to live and our lives are more important than where we are posted to work. I am a medical doctor, posted to Jos, Plateau State, but due to the insecurity, we decided to redeploy from there and some of my colleagues used medical reports, which showed they were not OK. The criteria for leaving were medical reasons or insecurity, or marriage, so we submitted our relocation form. I left the orientation camp because I was not too fine; I wanted to go back to Delta.
“About a week after passing out, the authorities said they had not seen our relocation forms, medical report and all. I told the person who called that I was not feeling fine but he kept calling. So, I had to contact my bunkmate who helped me fill that same relocation form all over again.”
“In my camp, only about two persons were allowed to relocate out of about 33 doctors and those who got theirs were seriously connected. Should we go to the North and die because I am a government child?
“Of all my friends who are also medical practitioners, only about four were posted to Ekiti, Osun and other southern states; the rest were taken to Sokoto and Kaduna. One of us encountered bandits on his way to Sokoto; he escaped, though and we had to ask him to put on his WhatsApp location to know wherever he was going.
“The accommodation they give corps members is not befitting. My friend in Borno told me they lost a corps member, a pharmacist, during the camp. She was 24 years old and she had started panting after they played volleyball. They rushed her to the clinic but in less than 10 minutes, she died. The clinic had no oxygen. It was after she died that the oxygen arrived. So the official there told them to lie that the lady died at the referral hospital. You
