MEDICAL STRIKE; PRESIDENT
JONATHAN DANCING ETIGHI
WITH OUR LIVES
Written by Fejiro Oliver
It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all
physicians graduate in the bottom half of their
class
Unknown
Just when I was about getting ready for my
afternoon games; an sms rushed in, which got
me thinking that the medical war will go on
nonstop until the citizen and the president do
something about it by laying off the minister of
Health, Mr. Chukwu Onyebuchi or acceding to
JOHESU request. I wasn’t thinking because it
was the first sms of the day over my last write
up on the medical strike. As a matter of fact, it
wasn’t
among the first 100 sms and definitely not
among the over 480 mails received at that
moment, but because I concluded that I have
finally known the reason for the power tussle
in the volatile health sector. The message
came thus: “Doctors are the academics in the
health sector, while your so called health
workers-many of them-semi-educated are the
non academic staff. In all jobs, only certain
cadre of workers become CEO. For instance,
the academics in the university, the engineers
in NNPC, Judges in judiciary. That is why
doctors are CMD in hospitals. You claimed you
are a journalist. Perhaps a secretary is the
EDITOR of your newspaper! You are one of
those jealous of doctors. Your article revealed
that.” He ended. This is definitely what they
are made to believe during their housemanship
and internship. If this is so; the medical sector
is dead. With supposed physicians that think
like this, the medical rofession is in peril. Let’s
analyze.
All over the world, there are only three group of
medical profession(I stand to be corrected)
that are ascribed the title ‘doctor’ namely;
doctor of medicine, doctor of physiotherapy
and doctor of dentistry, but this piece is
narrowed down to doctor of medicine. When I
set out to write ‘Nigeria Medical Workers
strike; let us all die’, I wasn’t expecting the
kind of controversy and buzz as it has
generated home and abroad. Certainly I was
threading where angels fear to tread as
revealed by Nigerian Medical Association
(NMA) members who have called and sent
mails. Their various comment suggested that I
was threading on a dangerous path and
should not be the one to open the public eye
to the politicking in the health. Sorry my dear
family members who are part of NMA; the truth
must be told. Our dear friend called other
medical graduates “semi-educated’, a pitiable
summary of their reason for going on strike, so
he sees it. Can a pharmacist who
manufactures the drugs which they in the
doctor category prescribe be a semi illiterate,
and yet they ask the public to take the drugs?
Can a radiographer who do all the scan work
in the hospital be an illiterate and yet they the
so called ‘doctors’ begin treatment, while
dependant on the scan produced by the
radiographer? Is the medical lab scientist an
illiterate when he diagnosis the cause of an
ailment through his series of test carried out
by him that the physicians used in working? Is
the nurse truly semi- literate when a patient
hope of recovery depends on him/her? Bring
them on; is the optometrist a semi illiterate
when patients with various eye problems seek
his medical solution? Who then is the semi
illiterate; the man who calls himself a doctor
but cannot begin treatment until a test is
carried out, or the man who diagnoses and
refers the patient to any of the three doctors?
Is it the man who forgets a scissors or cotton
wool inside a patient body, stitch it up only for
the patient to die later? Let the public judge.
I don’t know the school our doctors went to
but the schools in Nigeria and abroad that I
have been to bears school of health sciences,
faculty of health sciences or college of
medicine and all the various medical
departments are in these departments. It’s
befuddling to say that an insignificant
department that cannot operate alone be
allowed to be a CMD. A professor of medicine
who called from the USA to lend his voice aptly
noted that hospitals are left in the hands of
health administrator not clinicians. Can
someone sing to the heavens to this ‘doctors’
that they have no business heading a hospital
and if they should head, that any of the
medical profession who is most qualified
should head.
That a department of radiology, medical
laboratory scientist (which the media
erroneously refer to as medical laboratory
technologist), optometry etc is headed by a
doctor is an aberration, a misdemeanor and
oddity. What then is the use of studying such
course when the practitioner cannot get to the
peak of his career? Let all medical
departments be headed by a graduate of such;
not a fellow who did only few months of
residency in it. You don’t force leadership
when a people reject it. The various
departments have refused to have MBBS
graduate as their heads. Must they shed blood
or keep this strike going for all our loved ones
to die before their call is heeded?
In the college of engineering, there exist
various departments, but the civil engineers
have never laid claim that they alone be
allowed to head the ministry of works, neither
has the building engineers say to the
structural engineer that it is their prerogative
to head ministry of housing. The
petrochemical engineer has not told the
chemical engineer or petroleum engineer that
they alone be allowed to head NNPC. The land
surveyor has not told the estate surveyor that
they alone be made minister for land survey?
Has the quantity surveyor told the land
surveyor that they should be allowed to be
made surveyor general of the federation? NO!
They all know that they are all engineers and
surveyors, but designated differently for the
smooth operation of the job. Where therein lies
this show of pomposity by a minute member of
the medical profession that they are the
owners of medicine.
The public may not know it, but now they
must! The three profession bearing ‘doctors’
constitute only 30 percent of the entire clinical
staff in the hospital with doctor of medicine
producing a paltry 12 percent. That a group of
12 percent be allowed to Lord over 70 percent
qualified and worthy medical workers is an
unforgivable sin and injustice to mankind. The
academics which are the brain behind the
country do not have only graduates of
educational degrees as Vice Chancellors, but
anybody who is a lecturer no matter the field
of study can be appointed. The Judiciary
which the doctors of medicine want to emulate
is the most professional field in the world,
where universities operate a department as a
faculty. Yet they have never fought each other
that an international law and jurisprudence
judge should not be made a minister of justice.
They have never asked the President to allow
only law school graduates of criminal laws to
be made an attorney general, neither have
they argued that only civil law graduate be
made a chief judge. Anyone of the law
profession is allowed to aspire to be a judge
without hindrances. What then is wrong with
our MBBS doctors?
No medical profession is entirely independent;
all of them are allied to one another; support
staff to each other. Let me tell you an
experience. Five years ago, my cousin who is
a doctor of medicine took me to see his friend
who is a doctor of physiotherapy and was
about to wed in two weeks time. There in the
hospital, I heard his patient, an elderly man
telling him that if he can make him walk before
his wedding day; he, the patient will surprise
him. I don’t know how he did it, but before the
end of the two weeks, the man was hale and
hearty, walking very well. I bet you can never
guess this, but the patient was a consultant
cardiologist! Yes, a consultant cardiologist
who has given hope on life brought back to
‘life’ by another field of medicine. He did make
good his promise as he was a major sponsor
of the wedding.
As I write, in Ahmadu Bello University in a unit
(which I won’t disclose) lies a consultant
pediatrician who has been sustained on
physiotherapy for the past ten years, after a
successful surgery, with many more in the cue
daily for treatment and yet his NMA colleagues
will want the world to believe that they are
indispensable, when actually they contribute
the lowest of medical delivery. I know of
hundreds NMA members whose hope of living
lies in the nurses, DPT and optometrist; yet
they refuse to allow professionalism reign in
the health sector.
When doctors of medicine go on strike, they
want my likes to pen reports that will cause
government to hear and attract public
sympathy, yet when other medical unions go
on same strike; their national president term it
sabotage, urging her members to be on duty.
They want the media to be silent about it,
forgetting that NMA strike does not affect
every patient as there are always skeletal
works going on by consultants and house
officers. But how wrong he is. In the field of
medicine; you are a clinical staff, non clinical
staff or administrative staff. If this is so, what
manner of argument are they propounding that
medicine practice is akin to a house being
built, where other staff are laborers’ while they
are the engineers. It doesn’t just blend.
Fejiro Oliver is always paid by agents, so they
shout. When I wrote advocating for fair trial to
Ibori, they shouted to high heavens that I was
paid millions by Ibori hatchet men; when I
wrote the APC story; APC chieftains screamed
that PDP is using me as their new media man.
When I wrote against my own constituency,
NUJ, for engaging in unprofessionalism; they
say Fejiro was being used by disgruntled
elements and when I broke the Dafinone’s
secret daughter reports, his hangers-on raised
the roof that the secret daughter, Elizabeth
Dafinone has paid me in pounds since she
resides in London. And now that I have written
on the JOHESU/NUPTAM strike, NMA
members allege that I have been paid and
being used by Medical Lab Scientist and
Nurses to heat the polity and cause the sack
of Minister Onyebuchi. If truly I’m being paid
for all the countless reports and stories I have
written for over a decade; I should be flying in
my own private jet, chartering private planes
whenever I go travelling, not boarding a
business class.
Reports emanating from various newspaper
reports, says that patients are already dying,
with many more being evacuated to private
hospitals; yet the doctors are there, helpless
with no solution to the cure as they are
handicapped. Will a doctor of medicine go to
the physio department to treat a case he has
never seen all his life apart from reading about
them (that is if he has ever heard about it). I
write with the spirit of truth and the various
media publishers in Nigeria, London, USA,
Ghana, Vienna, Netherlands etc publish in the
spirit of truth. Nigerians have personally asked
that I express their gratitude to them for being
a vessel of information and making open what
the ordinary masses never knew. I do not just
write as a journalist, but also an activist, who
advocates for the right things to be done and
workers given their due benefits.
Mr. Minister, Nigerians are the ones dying not
your children, they are the ones suffering, not
your immediate relatives. These medical
workers you know as I know do not truly feel
the pains as the electorate, but must they all
die before you tender your resignation
honorably? To you Mr. President, we know you
don’t give a damn, but don’t you also care
that mothers will be made widows, husbands
made widowers and parents who probably
have their only child in the hospital now will
become childless? Dear Jonathan, don’t you
care for the loss of loved ones that will occur
as you dance etighi with lives of Nigerians who
you swore to protect? Is the continous stay of
your Minister of Health more important than
the hundreds of lives of Nigerians that are
already dying? The court appeal made by the
Minister is uncalled for, wicked and delay
tactics, aimed at crucifying the citizenry. By
the way, what were you thinking when you
appointed the minister of health and minister
of health (state) from the same NMA? Were
you thinking the medical workers are fools
who you can ride on and get away with? No,
dear President! These are professionals who
spent years in the university more than you;
these are the men when my grandma had
back pain that the Onyebuchi group referred
us to, these are the men who without them,
my late grand dad would have being buried as
a blind man. It is these men who I rush to for
test and diagnosis when I feel uneasy. Oh
Jona; these are the very people who when our
relations have gone to sleep, leaving the sick
in the ward; they in their glowing white
uniforms take care of them while the NMA
members go to the call room, sit on the sofa,
crossing their legs, sipping tea and watching
DSTV.
They have not asked for much but
harmonization in the health sector as is done
all over the world. Nigerians are saying, ‘grant
them their prayers that we may not die’. Or
have they not elected you and should be able
to tell you what to do? If you could sack the
defense minister and national security adviser,
despite the days of Boko Haram insurgence,
who then is the minister of health that you
cannot show the way out, due to his nepotism,
favoritism, high handedness and
incompetence.
No, I refuse to be part of a cheated generation
a decayed history and a partaker of
oppression. I refuse to be tagged a failure by
my unborn generation, who will question my
role in this moment of history, such as this.
Tomorrow, it just may be my great grandchild
fighting this; it might even be yours. Mr.
President, this azonto dance with the medical
profession is enough; this etighi dance has
gone on too long. There is blood on the dance
floor already and the cries of the innocent
patient who may have been saved by your
quick action is ascending and your name is
being mentioned. When the day of reckoning
comes; what would you answer for these
blood?
These little things matter…
Fejiro Oliver, a Journalist can be reached on
secretsreporters@gmail.com and
+2348026797588 (sms only please). You can
now follow on twitter @fejirooliver86 and
Facebook fejirooliver86

Thanks