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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Health / Resident Doctors are Not To Blame (907 Views)
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Resident Doctors are Not To Blame by Spuggie: 10:17am On Sep 05, 2014 |
If the recent statements of the minister of health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, are anything to go by, then, residency training for doctors may be on the chopping block. This should not be a surprise after the ban/unban move by the federal government following the strike embarked upon by members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), a majority of whom are resident doctors. Apparently referring to the recent strike, the health minister, at an event in Abuja, accused members of his constituency of losing empathy and concern for human life. The minister, at the event designed to appraise the residency training programme in government-owned hospitals, lamented that the programme had derailed from its initial lofty ideals. In an apparently unintended counter-punch, however, a director in the ministry, Dr Patience Osinubi, exonerated the doctors from the minister’s accusations. She pointed out that the residency programme was beset by numerous challenges like inadequate funding by federal hospitals, lack of commitment on the part of trainers and residents, intermittent loss of accreditation by training institutions and total lack of adequate training institutions. The director hit the nail on the head. The minister, a professor of medicine, was until his appointment a trainer of resident doctors. To that extent, he is well aware of the challenges the director pointed out. Even from his high horse, he cannot claim not to know that training institutions and facilities for resident doctors are, to put it modestly, almost non-existent. It is no news, even to lay people, that our hospitals, especially the federal government ones, are “mere consulting clinics”. That much was exposed when terrorists bombed the United Nations building in Abuja; the neighbour next door, the National Hospital, could not provide even first-aid services. And that hospital is one of the best the nation has to offer at least in the Federal Capital Territory as a doctors’ training institution. Whose duty is it to equip the hospitals and make them functional? Certainly not the resident doctors who have to put up with the indignity of referring their patients to outside facilities for services like laboratory, x-ray and even for prescribed drugs, fully aware of the risks involved but are nonetheless helpless. Some, out of frustration, leave the country in search of opportunities. We are not by any means trying to condone the excesses or, for that matter, the shortcomings of the resident doctors who are, indeed, the frontline soldiers in most government hospitals. But the minister should be honest enough to accept that the nation’s healthcare facilities are less than desirable as evidenced by the humiliating syndrome of medical tourism Nigeria is plagued by. Professor Chukwu ought to know that the entire healthcare system is in dire need of overhaul. Scapegoating the resident doctors is escapist and unacceptable. |
Re: Resident Doctors are Not To Blame by Nobody: 10:53am On Sep 05, 2014 |
Can we blame him ? Is it not that same constituency that fought for a medical doctor to occupy the office he sits in that he has turned round to blackmail? He will surely step down from his perceived "high-horse" one day and then he will realise the incalculable and irreparable damage his tenure as minister of health has done to this noble profession. 1 Like |
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