FG to extend doctors, nurses retirement age from 60 to 65 – Labour Minister
The Federal Government of Nigeria has said there is a plan in the pipeline to increase the retirement age for Nigerian doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists, physiotherapists and health workers from 60 to 65 years and 70 years for consultants (medical specialists), NIMEDHEALTH reports.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by the Honorable Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, at a meeting between the Presidential Committee on Salaries (PCS), relevant Federal Government stakeholders, Health Sector Professional Associations, and Trade Unions in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
The meeting focused on hazard allowance and retirement age for health sector workers in government establishments.
In Ngige’s words: “We have taken their (health workers) proposal. As a government, we will ensure will fulfill our part of the proposal(bargain) and we are reconvening June 1, so that we can have an agreed hazard allowance for health workers in Nigeria,.
“We also discussed the issue of retirement age for health workers, being that we want to keep our health workers here in Nigeria.
“A lot of people are coming here to poach and take away people we have trained at very great cost.
“It takes a lot of funds to train a medical doctor, nurse or even a laboratory technologist or physiotherapist. So, we want to retain them here to continue providing essential services. “We are making progress. The health workers are happy and we, in the government side are happy also. We need them to keep our health system alive.
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“Nobody in government is opposed to the proposal. It is a proposal that is realistic. It is a proposal that we all agreed to last year when COVID-19 erupted.
“Remember that we were even calling back people who are retired. We delayed retirement age by six months for health workers so that we can fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic is not yet over. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. We are not praying for any other pandemic but we have to be battle ready at all times, health-wise.”
Recall that, some stakeholders in the past and even in recent times have been calling on the Nigerian government to increase retirement age of health workers. These calls became necessary following the government extension of retirement age for court judges, lectures in Universities, colleges of education and polytechnics… and recently the federal government increased the retirement age of both primary and secondary school teachers to 65.
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