By Wambo Emmanuel in Bamenda
Contrary to what many have termed punitive sanctions by the minister of Public Health, Andre Mama Fouda on medical strike leaders, Dr. Kinge Thompson, Director of the Bamenda Regional Hospital has refuted claims that the transfers of Dr. Laah Njoyo Sylvan the radiologist and Dr. Basong Pierre the neurologist from Bamenda Regional Hospital to some remote areas were anything but punitive.
According to the Director of the Bamenda Regional Hospital, transfers in the civil service are
government’s prerogative and did not supposed to attract such ferocious criticisms like it did on social and conventional media. He told The Sun that Dr. Laah Njoyo Sylvan and Dr. Bassong Pierre’s transfers from the Bamenda Regional Hospital should in no way be given punitive coloration. He quipped that their names were in a long list of medical officials who were transferred on promotion as service heads.
Dr. Kinge said in as much as demands tabled by SYMEC, the syndicate for medical doctors, were acceptable, they were not weighty enough to push the medical core to halt their jobs and take to the streets. Reason why the strike action did not hold in the Bamenda Regional Hospital as called by syndicate leaders.
Dr. Kinge also added that: “Although the population has been protesting against the transfer of Dr. Laah and Dr. Bassong from the Bamenda Regional Hospital which in their imagination created a vacuum, the good news is that Dr. Fondjo Teu-mbou Sa’adeu (neureo-surgeon) and Dr. Noffe Tchinda (Radiologist) have been appointed by the Minister of public health Andre Mama Fouda to replace them at the helm of those offices.”
It should be recalled that Dr Pierre Yves Bassong, President of the Cameroon Medical Doctors’ Union, will have to leave Bamenda to the Somalomo District Health Centre, Eastern Region. Dr. Laah Ndjoyo Sylvain, also from Bamenda has been sent to Mozogo District Medical Center in the Extreme North Region.
Those transfers were considered punitive by critics because of the leadership role those doctors played in calls for workers of the medical core to go on strike so that government could improve on their working conditions.