Coronavirus

Controversies generated over the status of Kogi State on the Covid-19 outbreak has claimed a major victim in the relationship between members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Kogi state council and those of Nigeria Medical Association, NMA in the State.

The NUJ has directed all journalists in the state not to report activities of the NMA until further notice, to avoid being drawn into unnecessary confrontations with government or any other body.

The union also called on the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) Kogi state chapter to toe the path of honour by taking responsibility for it’s actions.

This contained in a statement signed by Alhaji Momohjimoh Adeiza and Ademu Seidu , Chairman and secretary respectively of the union. The NUJ expressed disappointed that an association of the status of NMA could deny a statement it issued and signed.

The statement which reads in part:
“Our attention has been drawn to a refutal by NMA on its statement on the non testing by the Kogi state government to ascertain the level of COVID-19 in the state.

In the words of the NMA, “Because of this high level of suspicions, doctors prefer to rule out COVID-19 in patients they considered as high risk before proceeding to manage them for their clinical conditions. The inability of the state to test or follow laid down protocols in order to exclude COVID-19 may lead to needless death of patients presenting with other clinical conditions due to neglect by HCWs.
It should be noted, that if doctors should attend to one unknown case of COVID-19 in the hospital settings, it may spread to many HCWs and their families”

According to the NUJ, it would have been better and more honourable for the Association to simply apologize to the government, when it finds out that the statement was not correct, instead of putting journalists who are simply doing their jobs at the receiving end.

The Union commended the state government for being proactive in it’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the state, which has made Kogi one of the states yet to record any single case.

They called on the the government to extend support to Kogi journalists who have been in the forefront of the fight against this dreaded disease.