A professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, Emmanuel Otolorin, has urged medical practitioners to prioritise planning for retirement to avoid retiring into penury. He said this while delivering a lecture at the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Oyo State Branch, yearly general meeting and scientific conference. He said doctors should not be too carried away with their work and forget to plan adequately for retirement.

According to him, the theme of the lecture, ‘After the final rounds: Finding fulfilment post retirement’, is timely due to the recent economic downturn of the country, which has rendered salaries inadequate and put serious pressure on the income of medical practitioners. He urged them not to be a last-minute kind of planner; rather, they should start planning early for life after the active service year.

“Do not be a last-minute dot-com kind of planner. You should start very early. And don’t rely on Nigeria’s pension scheme. The money is very small. The salary that doctors get in this country is very small. The pension, therefore, is very small, and you cannot sustain yourself.

“When you are in service, you do many other things. You consult here and there. You give lectures or you do some other stuff that keeps you going. Now, you must make sure that you prepare for retirement. You must calculate how much you will need to live a decent life without lowering the quality of your life.

“Do not rely on children to take care of you. It doesn’t work that way anymore. The children of these days have numerous problems, and parents are even helping them to solve some of those problems. So you have to prepare for yourself,” he said.