The Enugu State Governor, Mr Sullivan Chime, has called on medical practitioners to check quackery in their profession to maintain a good record.
Chime made the call in Enugu on Wednesday while declaring open the 2012 physicians’ week of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Enugu chapter.
Represented by Dr Fidelia Ugwu, the Commissioner for Health, the governor said that fighting quackery would make the practitioners more acceptable to the society.
According him, quackery was the major factor that militates against medical authority. “If you want people to visit Enugu and be treated, we must do things properly, efficiently and sustainably.
“If we don’t possess the dream of fighting quackery, we cannot dream of retaining medical authority.
“We must have to begin the change, we have to change our mind set,’’ the governor said.
He called on the medical practitioners to work as a team, adding that no doctor can practice medicine alone.
In his opening remarks, the Chairman of the ceremony, Dr Ben Onwubere, applauded the new executives of the chapter, saying they were rebranding the NMA.
He congratulated them for starting on the right foot and urged them to meet regularly, adding that it was the only means of assembling members together.
In his welcome address, the chairman of the chapter, Dr Obinna Onodugu, said the physician’s week was a week that doctors reminded themselves and others that they were health providers.
He called on his colleagues to always remember the health challenges currently facing the country.
A resource person who spoke on active aging and health, Prof. Sam Ike, said that doctors worked tirelessly to promote and create awareness about diseases that promote illness and injuries in old people.
Ike called on medical practitioner to join hands with other stakeholders in the society to plan policies and programmes that would help the aging ones.
He called on both the aging and the young ones to always exercise themselves as it helped the mental health and cardiac health positively.?