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9th November, 2013
Pharmacists, nurses, others should stop
competing with doctors –NMA president
NOVEMBER 9, 2013 BY GBENRO ADEOYE
18 Comments
President, Nigerian Medical
Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele
The President, Nigerian Medical
Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, in this
interview with GBENRO ADEOYE, insists
that physicians are best suited to head
teaching hospitals
Is it not biased to say only doctors should
head hospitals when health care delivery
is encompassing?
In any human system, even in heaven and
hell, there is order. The phenomenon
playing out in the public health care sector
amounts to an unnecessary equality
beauty contest and unholy quest for the
doctor’s leadership authority. This is quite
unfortunate and uncalled for.
Every profession and system has a ‘soul’
and a custodian of the core values. That
should be someone that has a broad-
based general knowledge of the intricate
workings of that system or sector. In the
health care sector, this professional is
unquestionably the medical doctor.
People have been referring to some
settings outside Nigeria where the so-
called professional managers are heading
hospitals. May I point out here that recent
evidence has proved that physician-led
hospitals perform better in terms of
positive patient outcomes which are the
primary concern of the health care sector.
The argument as to who is best suited to
head the hospitals/health establishments
has essentially been put to rest by results
of scientific studies, the latest being that by
a
world renowned researcher Amanda
Goodall in the USA, who established that
hospitals run by doctors were doing far
better than those run by the
administrators and any other groups of
persons. She went further to posit that the
main reason for this is that patient care is
at the centre of doctors’ training and
practice and are therefore in a better
position to take certain decisions which
are critical for patient’s survival.
Are you saying we can’t find a trained
nurse, pharmacist etc who can manage a
hospital
better than a doctor or be a
better administrator?
This is beyond emotional reasoning. In the
management of public hospitals,
physicians are better suited to manage
hospitals as it is not purely a profit-
oriented venture, but one in which a
delicate balance has to be made between
quality patient care/patient needs and
profit making. It is expected that the
manager of a hospital would be one with a
broad
and deep understanding of patient
needs in addition to his/her cognate
managerial experiences which could be
garnered as head of several units and
departments within the hospital.
Medical and Dental practitioners are not
only good clinicians, but also good and
excellent managers of human, material and
financial resources through administrative
acumen, generally garnered on the job
through experience and other formal and
informal training.
Health care or hospital management is not
about democratic selection or election. If it
was, then one day, the catechist would
start celebrating masses in the Catholic
Church since he now possesses PhD. Or the
Nurse anaesthetist
would start performing
surgery on the basis of the votes garnered
from members of the surgical team. For
those who want to turn best practices
upside down, I encourage them to
establish a hospital and appoint a
paramedic or allied health care worker as
the head.
The health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu,
once said that a hospital is totally a
doctor’s territory, do you agree with this
assertion?
Many a time, public officers are misquoted
or interpreted out of context. This is what I
suspect
could have happened here. I am
sure the Hon. Minister was trying to
explain what I just told you now. No
medical doctor would want to become the
managing director of a pharmaceutical
industry if he has no specific training in
Clinical Pharmacology or Therapeutics
which are also clinical specialties. No
medical doctor has attempted becoming
Head of the Nigerian Institute of
Pharmaceutical Research and Development
whose management has been colonised
by pharmacists or the Army, Navy or Air
force. Doctors know their limits. Doctors
are simply support staff in these sectors.
Many paramedics, including
pharmacists,nurses, laboratory
technologists/’scientists,’ physiotherapists,
etc. have changed their professions by
going back to school to study medicine
and become what they feel should
guarantee their happiness. Have you heard
of a doctor who left the medical profession
to
read physiotherapy or medical
laboratory science or nursing? People
should be contented with their
professional status, defined roles and
positions instead of over-heating the
health care environment with frivolous
allegations and agitations.
Issues of performance can sometimes be
subjective but we will find quite a
number of people who will say that Prof.
Eyitayo Lambo did well as a health
minister. Yet, he was not a http://www.punchng.com/politics/hotseat/pharmacists-nurses-others-should-stop-competing-with-doctors-nma-president/