eejo: Doctors monopoly is responsible for the fall in the health care system the minister lack knowledge to say all other professional are supportive health is like a football team a striker is not important than the goalkepper until Doctors realise this Nigerians will continue to suffer poor health system

jonesofunne: For over two decades, nigerian universities have been churning out holders of graduate and post-graduate degrees in health management/administration. Doctors aspiring to head health institutions in Nigeria and in the diaspora are availing themselves the opportunity. Many of them were my classmates during our Masters degree programme in Uniben and others are also pursuing doctorate degrees in the same field. The Minister's arguement is shallow and untenable and he knows it. Nigeria is part of the global world.

Olanight:
No mind d fool jare....its pathetic dat most pple commentin here ve neva been 2 a teaching hospt b4

takeprofit:

What is a medical doctor doing as the governor of a state or in the senate. politics and government should be left for Political Scientists.

Adebowale352: Medicine is under the Health sector...others include dentistry,pharmacy,optometry,nursing,medical lab science....if medicine is now dominating others makes it wrong...the position should be shared equally because Med.docs can't even work independent of other medical professions

Laalamed:
so administrators should head universities and polytechnics. i laugh.

centje: so you're trying to say that someone with bachelor of science in nursing knows what it takes to manage a diabetic patient or to do appendicectomy?

Doctors are insisting that this administrative office in health institutions is patient oriented. And only doctors can give a holistic approach to bring about that patient oriented care.

kenlash1: Pls we shld recognise d role of a cmd before commenting? D role of a cmd is not to attend to patient but to give a wholistic management of d hospital, its NT an exclusive ryt of one profession since d health sector is a multi facetted sector ,

Baby mama:

There are many hospital administrators at various levels that are not doctors
But the Chief medical directors invariably must be doctors
That should be a no brainer

Laalamed:
that is not true. doctors are decision makers in hospitals. nurses follow doctors instructions. developed countries are more comfortable to hire foreign nurses than doctors. besides demand for nursing services is increasing because of increase in aging populations.

centje: You know hospital is all about patient's care. Every other thing is secondary. Among the health professionals only doctors pass through all the health departments in the course of training

ugochi86: I see this as a good avenue for all non-doctors in hospitals to vent.its understandably frustrating for them beause most of them had d aspiration of becoming doctors but jamb and probably some other factors stood in their way.they should leave them(doctors) alone.they shsould have burnt the midnight candle when they still had d chance but it's never too late to purchase jamb form as someone earlier suggested.

laseni: A medical doctor by training,undergoes comprehensive training in ALL the fields of medicine and is thus well grounded to take adequate care of patients.For anybody to be a good hospital administrator,you must be well grounded in every area of medical care,because the objective in hospital administration is not about making money;but using the often limited resources to achieve optimal care for your client.This you would able to do if you have a complete knowledge of what your patients would require.

laseni: A medical doctor by training,undergoes comprehensive training in ALL the fields of medicine and is thus well grounded to take adequate care of patients.For anybody to be a good hospital administrator,you must be well grounded in every area of medical care,because the objective in hospital administration is not about making money;but using the often limited resources to achieve optimal care for your client.This you would able to do if you have a complete knowledge of what your patients would require.

hairyman: Let me make a few clarifications, here in Nigeria the degree a 'doctor' leaves school with is bacheelor of medicine bachelor of science, did you hear a doctor in that? The title 'doctor' come of posterity, it was a title that came to be ages ago and not a qualification, at least in our climes. In more developed countries however, the degrees are different MD. However other health professionals also have degrees like that such as DPT doctor of physiotherapy, Pharm D doctor of pharmacy. So over there all these are doctors. Having said that, I have read through certain arguments here about doctors knowing all about health care, going through all aspects in their training and all, that without any shadow of doubt is untrue and to the extent in which it is true is absolutely wrong. A doctor, as well as any other health professional, goes through every aspect of other health care professions during training, this does not in any way make them professionals in those fields. We have this misconception because in this country, a doctor freely overstep their boundaries, because of the ignorance of the people and our poor health and judiciary system. Let Nigerians learn to sue and you will see a great difference in the practice of medicine.
Health mannagement is by no means, solely the terrain of doctors. Nowhere in the world is MBBS or MD a prerequisite for that position except ofcourse in Nigeria (it is also only in Nigeria that a doctor employed by a state government will go on strike asking for the pay received by a federal worker when he/she is free at any time to resign a state appointment and seek a federal appointment if he likes the pay better). Many things are wrong in this nation and this is certainly one of them. Everyone in the health system has his role to play, it ends there. Everyone is a professional, independent and authoritative in his field. There is and should be no issue of superiority or inferiority. I support all other health professionals who are overcoming their colonial imposed inferiority and rising to challange this oddity perculiar to our perculiar country. There is a reason why the term medical team is used to refer to all professionals coming together to work, not a doctor's team. The issue of greater knowledge as a result of residency is clearly offset by post graduate studies in other fields, physiotherapy anyway has launched their residency program.
By no means should the position of hospital management be solely reserved for physicians.

docxdee: Dis iz plain rubbish..itz an obvious plot by all dz nurses,lab tecnicians,pharmacistz,etc to take over control..every health team haz a physician az itz head n others simply make up d body..jez imagine one dirty lab technician az a cmd or medical director of a hospital....very weird n sooo improper

Tedpgrass:


Heading a health organization

We need to define..
1) the organization.... a small hospital vs govt parastatal
2) the health welfare reform in place.... ??socialist as in NHS or capitalist as obtains in the US.
3) Level of development.... type of non-medical healthcare manager (attending different CPD courses) operational in the NHS which has in place, robust rules and guidance will differ greatly from the type needed or available in the backwaters of Jigawa state.


Looking concisely at the syllabus and training schedule of most medical trainees in Nigeria, the MBBS, BDS have remained the most robust, in relation to the requirements of running a health organization. You can then argue these Nigerian-trained professionals are better placed to be in the steering capacity.

Though all medical professionals work as a team, the onus still lies with the doctor at the end of the day. Whether palatable or not, the buck stops with the MBBS/BDS.



Hence, I agree with the argument below:





It's well documented that when non-medical try to rule the roost, they fail miserably, putting patient safety and health at huge risk. Examples abound in the NHS/ UK.
France +Germany who have largely doctors heading their organizations have better indices in relation to patient experience and important stats like cancer cure and public health systems in place, which ensure a fairly healthy general population.

The US may boast of state of the art treatments and medical care. But there's such a variation in health care indices. This is largely due to a capitalist (insurance)
based healthcare system which focuses on profit rather than general public health. This was reiterated by a documentary, I watched awhile ago, when in midwest USA, people drove for 6hrs to queue as early as 3:00am for free opthalmology care provided for, by a charity. That doesn't happen in the NHS yet. Things may well change due to new initiatives being introduced.


.