AS the doctors’ strike enters day four, the House of Representatives
Thursday directed the House Committee on Health to immediately engage
the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the Federal Ministry of Health.
At the plenary session of the House presided over by Aminu Waziri
Tambuwal, the lawmakers asked the committee to ensure quick resolution
of knotty issues between the warring parties and report back within one
week.
The House Minority Whip, Mr. Samson Osagie while moving the motion
under matters of urgent national importance lamented the strike action by
the doctors adding that it behooves on the authorities to avert a situation
whereby the doctors emigrate abroad in search of a greener pastures.
Friday Itulah (PDP Edo) urged the doctors and the authorities to settle their
differences in the interest of the downtrodden that cannot match the elites
that can afford medical services in private hospitals.
Uzor Azubuike described the strike action by doctors as ill timed, noting
that the strike action must not be allowed to be prolonged at a critical
period when the country is faced with security challenges.
There is however, hope that the strike action may end soon as the NMA has
promised to go back to work immediately the Federal Government meets
their minimal achievable demands.
The NMA had made 24 demands that must be met before they call of the
industrial action, which started on Tuesday July 1, 2014.
President NMA, Dr. Kayode Obembe, told The Guardian in a telephone
interview yesterday that the minimal achievable demands that the federal
government should guarantee include: continuation of the circular creating
five offices of the Deputy Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (DCMAC) in
teaching hospitals for medical doctors; the Chief Medical Directors (CMDs)
of teaching hospitals must be medical doctors; and removing the title of
consultants from other health workers.
The NMA President also said the federal government can also ensure
universal health coverage for 100 per cent of Nigerians not just 30 per cent
by dedicating two per cent of the nations consolidated revenue fund and
collecting one kobo per second of all calls on the GSM companies in the
country, which would amount to over N300 billion annually to fund a
Community based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHS).
Obembe said: “I can also tell you that that effort is already ongoing now. We
are hoping that it will yield the necessary result within the next few hours.
Nobody is happy that the hospitals will be closed down. It could be you; it
could be me that will need the doctors’ attention. Nobody is excluded even
we as doctors, we are not excluded. The idea is not to go and be doing
palliative measures while the strike continue. The idea is to totally find a
way of putting stoppage to the strike and that is by acceding to doctors’
demands.
“We have even gone a step further by writing the minimal achievable
demands and it is only meant for government to sign it. All the ones that
are not achievable immediately, we have already jettisoned those ones. So
let us all appeal to government to make sure that the hospitals start
functioning.”
Out of the 24 demands, which ones are contained in the minimal achievable
demands you have put forward to the government that they must meet for
the doctors to go back to work?
Obembe said: “First of all I must say the circular that they issued on Deputy
Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC) should continue. That one is
no problem, the circular is already issued and all the government needs is,
‘this circular should continue,’ that is simple. Then the issue of the Chief
Medical Directors (CMDs), all they need is to guarantee that the Teaching
Hospital Act must continue. Is that difficult to uphold? If they can do that,
even those two are enough to restore sanity back and we will be able to say
okay doctors go back to work, sanity has come back. You know that is as
simple as that.
“We want the government to also say that all those that are not medically
qualified should not continue to use the title ‘consultant’ because
consultant owns the patient. I don’t think that is difficult? That is why we
are saying if they meet the minimal demands and guaranteed, I promise you
within few seconds we are going back to work. You see all the things I told
you has nothing to do with doctors salary? All those who think it is all
about remuneration and so on, all those things have nothing to do with
salary. It all has to do with restoring sanity into the practice of medicine for
the benefit of every Nigerian.”
The Teaching Hospital Act states that the Chief Executive of teaching
hospitals are the CMDs and these directors are medically qualified doctors.
On when the strike will be called off, Obembe said: “I want to say meetings
are going on right now. We have had series of meetings with them and I am
telling you here and now that there is progress in these meetings. I only
hope that the Secretary General of the Federation will append his signature
to the terms and then we will be able to call off the strike.”
On 100 per cent universal health coverage, the NMA President said: “With
universal health coverage every Nigerian is supposed to be covered but
what do we see? The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is trying to
cover only 30 per cent of the population. What then happens to the 70 per
cent of the population that are not covered? Would anyone want to be part
of that 70 per cent? No! So we want 100 per cent coverage according
universal health coverage. Not only that, doctors again have already done
our calculations to show how the government can fund it.
Meanwhile, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has appealed to
the doctors to refrain from using strike actions as a means to get
government to concede to their demands.
The governor, who said this yesterday at the second convocation ceremony
of the Lagos State College of Health Technology located in Yaba area of the
state, said carnages from such industrial actions negate their professional
calling.
Fashola argued that those that invented strikes in the Nigeria health sector
did it for the sake of their patients not themselves, pricking the conscience
of the present crop of doctors to emulate their past leaders.
He said, “Medical workers from the lowest medical worker to the highest in
the chain of command and the team, you are like gods on earth. Only sick
people know your importance and I have been ill before.”
Fashola pointed that workers in other sub-sector of the nation’s economy
are not satisfied with their remuneration, saying they are not holding
governments by the jugular because they do not want the Nigerian state to
fail.
Harping on the importance of the new graduands in the state’s healthcare
system, the governor said, “What delights me most is that we are producing
graduates in areas where the Lagos economy has a compelling need, the
primary healthcare, the primary healthcare development.
The governor, who said the state government healthcare initiative, is
targeted at prevention offered automatic employment to the 265 graduating
students.
In Kwara State, skeletal medical activities are being rendered at the
University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Ilorin for some categories of
patients.
The Guardian investigations yesterday at the hospital showed that despite
the strike, consultants are attending to accident victims, critically sick in-
patients and premature babies at the neo natal section.
Our correspondent counted 20 babies at the neo-natal unit as at 12 noon,
just as over 10 fresh accident cases were being attended to at the Accident
and Emergency Section (A&E) of the hospital. However, the Out Patients
Unit was totally deserted.
Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Professor Abdulwaheed Olatinwo
declined comments on the development citing rules guiding strike actions.
But a nurse at the neo-natal section under condition of anonymity said the
maturity of the hospital management could not be divorced from the
development.
She said, “If our patients at this ward should be turned back or hurriedly
discharged, we will only be asking them to go home and die. If you equally
consider the cases of other critically ill patients, if they are discharged, they
are going to die. That is why the consultants are still coming around to
monitor their conditions.”
Besides, a consultant at the (A&E) also under the condition of anonymity
said the issue of accident remained an exceptional case under the strike.
He added, “Nobody would ordinarily envisage cases of accidents. If they do
occur however, we can’t blame anybody for the occurrence. So, we are here
to handle such cases. I think the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equally renders
this type of skeletal services to its patients.”
Kwara NMA Chairman Professor Olayinka Buhari pleaded with members of
the public over the strike, noting that, “this is not a personal struggle for
personal gains but a struggle for liberation in the health sectorç of our
country.”
Source: THE GUARDIAN

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