The hospital exists primarily because of patients.
How does appointing consultant nurses, pharmacists etc. help with or contribute to patient care?
What is the job of a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, physiotherapist etc.?
I believe we should try to answer these questions. Go check your job description. Efficacy and efficiency will be improved by doing what you are supposed to do. Activity is not the same as accomplishment. Don't do another persons job.

For record purposes, JOHESU s solely made up of pharmacists,Physiotherapists,nurses n Med lab scientists n doesn't include potters,cleaners as som1 mentioned earlier.
Peeps need to b well educated b4 putting scraps as comments. N as 4 d strike let Dem continue. Dis s NMA vs FG vs JOHESU n not 4 d public 2 runs dia mouth.I just kno dt D docs can't because of d title DR do d nurses n pharms n physio work. N pls erase d initial believe dt dey taught d rest of d health professionals, as for physiotherapy dt I kno of, we weren't tot by any Doc. Ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

InvertedHammer:

You have no iota of idea of what you are talking about. Government hospitals like Veterans Medical Centers (the biggest Federal funded hospital chain in USA) are not headed by medical doctors. Some doctors are in what will best be described as Board of Directors. But the overall head is usually someone trained in Business or Healthcare administration. The overall head known as the Secretary of VA Mr. Shinseki thst just resigned has M.A in English while Mr. Sloans who is the acting Secretary now has M.A in Economics. It is pertinent to note that each facility has a director and I am yet to know any facility that has a medical doctor as the overall head. You can Google their website at www.VA.gov to educate yourself. Hospitals in US are run as corporations that they are and not as "ego massage parlours".

Before you sell your garbage, Nigerian hospitals have Director of Administration (DA) that oversee the administrative Sides of the hospitals and the Board of directors appointed by either the state or federal government. This board is the highest decision making body in the hospital. Now can you leave the US abit? Can we focus on how the British NhS hospital Is run? because the last time I checked our health care and even all university degrees were modelled after our colonial masters! Can you please stop the US crap?

I would take Yeovil hospital NHS as an example. It's headed by a CEO Dr Lucy more. Who is a specialist. The hospital also have board of directors that are 14 in number. Don't bring out yourself with your cheap reasons. We know America is a place where everything goes because of their complicated health system.

Do you want me to educate you on the health system of western Europe? Of course they are modelled like that of the UK! India and China the medical directors are medical doctors too while the managerial components are health with by managers who may or may not be doctors.
So your argument holds no water!
Also, if your Johesu says doctors and paramedics should earn the same salaries, is that how it's done in your almighty US? For your info the head of the labs in hospitals in UK and US are pathologists(specialist doctors) and they earn over a median of $250k while the lab scientist like your mum in US don't even hit 6 figures! It is the same story in UK and the discrepancy is even worse in UAE and Qatar! RELATIVITY is the rule but only JOE HATES YOU doesn't see that!

PerfectFortune: My take on this is that whenever the Doctors go on strike, they should loose somthing as well which must include their salaries while the industrial action lasts. The helpless masses should not be the only set of ppl at the receiving end.

The Drs are beneffiting a lot from strike actions ranging from getting paid without work to diverting patients to their private hospitals.

What disgutes me most about them is that most of them are glorified "first aid givers" gambling with ppl's lives.

The FG should just adopt Lagos State approach in cutting their silly wings.

you probably need to read about what happened when Fashola sacked doctors. he employed medical officers in the interim, re-employed the sacked doctors after four months and was forced to employ the "temporary" doctors he got. all salaries paid back after the recall, with apologies.

Haba?!!! what is there to argue here? why bring confusion to something as clear as noon day? patients go to hospitals to see doctors. Hospitals only run on the licences of doctors! Doctors should head hospitals! it's only in our part of the world this would become an argument!

I will also not cease to blame our failed University system for contributing a great deal to this impasse. They should stop admiting students who applied to study medicine into allied fields. They should go back home and prepare well for the nxt exams(yes like most of did). Because these set of people end up studying courses they don't like and nurse envy and hatred allthrough their professional lives.
Only pharmarcists and few nurses rightly applied to study those courses while a host of others just happened on them.
My advice, its never to late to get what you really want.

How long would it take a flight attendant to become a pilot, or a court second to become a judge? This arguments are borne out of hate and envy,the main evil members of johesu are the lab scientists, pathologists lecture medical students during training, scientists and technicians come in to help during practical sessions, Ȋ̝̊̅ dnt remember ever being taught by a lab scientist nor physiotherapist, although pharmacologists are also involved in teaching drugs, but only doctors teach students how to prescribe drugs

itz a pity our health system has degenerated to this. i must hold our health system planners, managers & policy makers responsible. itz either of d following:
1we hve lost d basics and grain of team work.
2 d team leader has lost d confidence of d members for reasons of his style of leadership, abuse of power, inability to maintain a balance among component members or an other.
3 an igbo adage has it dat wen a child is of age and demands certain entitlements, he becomes d bad child.
4 we want to retain processes as it has always been not caring if they need refinement.

many pple hv written and even wen attempting a fair analysis end up exposing & supporting their constituencies.
cant we make contributions without being sarcastic or make statemnts dat obviously
debase any people or job description to score points?. i hv a few questions:
1 wat is in d name consultants dat we must attain or defend
2 wen a doctor finally invites d services of another in his management of a a patient is it in a mere division of labour or recognition if d nxt person's ability.
3 some contributors make it look dat every person wants consultancy. cant there be requiremnts & qualifications b4 such is awarded & if one has met them wll it nt b given?
4 JOHESU consultant does it measure up to, diminish add or obscure d medical consultant.
5 wat is d clear threat d non medical consultant poses.
6 if d medical consultant owns d patient cant he lead a team of other non medical consultants in favour of d patient.
6 is there nothing a senior doc can learn frm a nurse about and in treating d patient and vice versa. if there is y pollute d arena dat can improve ur service. also a young hise officer newly engaged has a lot t learn frm his non doc colleagues. so a resident doc in training needs d input if others at diff stages to make it in his exams. y statements that sound disdainful.
7 where is d place of so many other brains who r actually bhind several breakthrus in medicine, d physicists biochemists microbiologists geneticists physiologists etc. i feel these are actually our heroes NOT whoever dat may play tingod
8 if headship of a hosp is managerial how can a non doc CMD who of course has a retinue of other clinical heads and a CMAC weigh negatively to d management if d patient.
9 wat may hv prompted JOHESU reawaking
10 y d bias of senior govt. officials in strike issues.
11 r there no seniors in these gps to sound caution.?

d adage of live and let live can guide us better. one does not tell his fellow man that there is nothing he can do because of your disposition. no little man is told dat to his face.

Looking at things from a neutral perspective, all I see is hatred for doctors as well as inferiority complex.

reindeer:


After all these rant which seem to me was programmed into you by your mum who spent 30years as a lab scientist, will you be against it if your child wishes to go to med school? i think not.
All these bile against doctors do nothing for the health sector, there is not short-cut in life, if you want equality of roles and titles with consultants, go back and study for another 15 years please.
If these amorphous fellows called JOHETSUK are given their demands, it wont be long before bricklayers start demanding equality with architects, auxillary nurse would want to be head of nursing department, civil defence go wan be general for army. Let us not turn Nigeria upside down simply because people want the benefits of what they didn't pay the price for. You should understand there must be a reason why lab science and medicine no get the same jamb entry score.

Instead of them to face their work jejely..they are showing the world how little they are..

tunesoft: Gloria Iheanacho writes. And i found it interesting.

I am a Medical lab scientist in one of the state hospitals. I have this strange feeling for doctors, hatred is the extreme form of what i feel about them. Its nothing personal. My family are JOHESU-mother is a nurse practising in the US for more than 16yrs, father is a pharmacist. 2 of my siblings are pharmacist and one a nurse. My mother watched the sunrise daily yesterday and kept on screaming. Theres no place in the US in which the other health workers heads. They are usually headed by doctors. Not all nurses are made consultants. You talk about consultant nurse when you talk about the legal aspect and they dont work in hospitals. Relativity is maintained everywhere in the health sector. Whats the debate about?
As hard as it is for me to write this, i want to be on the side of truth. The doctors in this country are not given the necessary respect that they need. Personally, i have read the 24 point demands and i think theres so much sense in it. The FG needs to do something about this. Lets join our hands and build our health sector. Health they say is wealth

Acidosis pls are you reading this?

This is so sickening - that we are fighting over rights and recognition like this. The solution to this problem is simple:

1. Set up hospitals to be run like corporate organizations (a la US style). Appoint an overall Chief Executive (or executive director). This person will be responsible for running the organization, and managing its people (doctors, nurses, pharmas, patients, etc) and resources (funds, budgets, donations, etc). To qualify for this position, you only need to demonstrate ability/capability to manage people and resources, and this can come by a combination of management experience, and a degree in business (MBA) or health administration (MBA-HA). Such qualified persons could be doctors, nurses, pharmacists, or persons with business degree. Infact, someone with an engineering degree, an MBA, and experience working strategy for the health sector could as well qualify.

2. Set up a second career ladder - the technical ladder, and define the summit for each career path. Doctors can start as residents and rise all the way to a 'Principal medical consultant' status, and there does not have to be one PMC in an organization. Similarly, nurses could have their career ladder that could go all the way to a 'Principal nursing officer' etc. At the summit of each profession, the recognition should be similar.

3. The issues of consulting is plain stupid. Anyone can be a consultant, the only difference is in the actual work played. A consulting doctor treats patients. I have seen consulting pharmacists as wells. Nurse practitioners (after getting a professional graduate degree (M.S. and/or Ph.D. in nurse practitioning)) can also become professional consultants providing expert services in nursing and advanced health care.

Finally, frankly I have a lot of respect for doctors (I have tons of doctor friends, my younger brother is almost done with med school, and I almost became one but thanks to God, I stood up against my parents and insisted I was going to study engineering and not medicine which they wanted). But I think they are constantly dealing with some measure of complex. No one is planning to take away the 6 years you spent in Uni, and maybe 3 additional years in residency. Pharmas also spend considerable time in Uni+residency. Stay focused on building yourselves: expand your horizon, learn as much as you can, improve, go to conferences, do some research, write and present scientific papers - do everything you can to be world renowned. Then you'd have all the respect you deserve. Getting a piece of degree from the derelict Universities in Nigeria means you still have a lot more work to prove yourself - go out there and do it, and stop battling for paper-degree-based recognition.

lanrefront1:

No one succeeded in making them look greedy....... Doctors are greedy.....it is not a figment of anyone's imagination...

Greed is not peculiar to any profession. It is a human attribute.

drlawizle:

Acidosis pls are you reading this?

Yes Sir

Inferiority Complex That's all I can deduce about his post. A sensible man will never hate a fellow man without a good reason.

Mind you, inferiority complex do not have anything to do with one's discipline. The same way a Nigerian President might feel inferior to a US Senator, a Nigerian Doctor can also feel inferior to an Indian Nurse.

Lets not forget that a screaming US Nurse doesn't authomatically amount to excellent gesture. I bet there are some Nigerian Doctors who have opposing views to NMA's proposal.

boseko: The hospital exists primarily because of patients.
How does appointing consultant nurses, pharmacists etc. help with or contribute to patient care?
What is the job of a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, physiotherapist etc.?
I believe we should try to answer these questions. Go check your job description. Efficacy and efficiency will be improved by doing what you are supposed to do. Activity is not the same as accomplishment. Don't do another persons job.

LPO

Though I don't have comprehensive knowledge about the workings of the health sector, but enough to know that the wahala over all this consultancy has to do with the money benefits attached to being a consultant.

Becoming a consultant is like an accountant becoming a chartered accountant or better, a lawyer becoming a SAN and I suspect its effects or implications goes beyond patient care. A consultant can be consulted for services relating to his/her expertise.

And I beleiev the doctors understand this.

From a neutral point of view, this is my take on this tussle between the healthcare professionals. I think each one of u (doctors, pharmacists, nurses, lab scientists, etc) should be proud of your individual professions. A nurse should be pursue excellence in being nurse, a pharmacist should pursue excellence in being a pharmacist and a doctor should pursue excellence in being a doctor. For any system to work effectively, there should be a leader and from the little I know, I think it's only reasonable that the doctor heads the medical team and everybody plays his role effectively for the good of the patient. Since the title of "consultant" has always been attributed to doctors, let them have their thing. I haven't heard of doctors struggling for the title of "matron" or "pharmacist". I think each person should be proud of what he does.

lanrefront1:

Honestly, this post is so bankrupt of wisdom and common sense that there is no need to waste time in replying.

The words of a coward with no reasonable rebuttals to bring to bear

I have to believe that you're intellectually challenged and thus cannot comprehend what I'm getting at. I'm no medical doctor (far from it!) but my argument is structured on REALITY. The reality of it all is what we're seeing now, with Doctors occupying a higher rung on the hierarchical ladder. Don't like it? Well, remember that this was a known issue when you picked up your JAMB form.

Be man enough to take responsibility for your own choices, coward.

lanrefront1:

Spoken like a true doctor.

Very stupid and unreasonable talk.

First my mum didn't programme anything to me. I saw what was happening with my own eyes because I frequent LUTH a lot while I was in Unilag. I have a mind of my own, and I know injustice and unreasonablness when I see one.

All you have said cannot be said to a good defense of doctors attitude and and their pursuit if sabotaging other health sector's workers to advance their profession.

If had a doctor son I would tell him the truth.

Are you saying Pharmacist are not cerebral enough to be directors in medical establishment. Medicine is not more cerebral or difficult than Pharmacist. Get a hold on your false ego.

So what are you guys saying? Are you saying if Dr. Dora Akunyili practised her career in a teaching hospital, she cannot become a director in administration while a doctor can simply because he studied medicine? Very ludicrous. What pomposity and such arrogance.

People, was I wrong now is saying Nigerian doctors are very arrogant, proud and back stabbing?

Then I asked a question that you cleverly dodged and avoided. What the doctors are asking for: Is that the best practises in other parts of the civilised world?

Dude..your mum who spent 30 years as a lab scientist probably didn't work in a teaching hospital. Go home and ask her the profession of the Director of Administration in those hospitals.
Come to think of it, people like keep bandying on about 'abroad, worldwide' etc It just shows you have no knowledge of the workings of those systems.
If you want the privileges of being a doctor, why don't you go to med school? oh i forgot, the jamb requirements are too high for some intellects to cope with.

We have all shouted ourselves hoarse since the 1980s to our masters to no effect. You, the NMA, have even sacrificed collaterally a few thousand lives in an attempt to move the immovable but those lives have been sacrificed in vain as the need for your current strike proves. To avoid being diagnosed as insane using Albert Einstein’s famous paradigm (Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results), I ask you to consider thinking outside the box by rousing the voices from the rest of the world. We all know that our masters have the foreign gods that they worship. We know that even the oga patapata dare not respond cavalierly to a query from CNN’s Christine Amanpour much less ignore Michelle Obama or Hilary Clinton’s views. We know he won’t wait to hear from Cameron or Obama before doing the needful in any situation. With that fact established all we need do is bring to the notice of such foreign worthies the plight Nigerians in general and doctors in particular have labored under in the last three decades. How do we go about this?

https://www.nairaland.com/1799547/how-nma-secure-trillions-nigerian

A lady already replied you that everyone in the health sector can't be a doctor. Is that so difficult for you to understand.

So if every medical personal becomes a doctor, who will be the nurse, pharmacist.

FOr you thinks those names or designation are just for show?

Lord have mercy...... I'm exerperated

reindeer:


Dude..your mum who spent 30 years as a lab scientist probably didn't work in a teaching hospital. Go home and ask her the profession of the Director of Administration in those hospitals.
Come to think of it, people like keep bandying on about 'abroad, worldwide' etc It just shows you have no knowledge of the workings of those systems.
If you want the privileges of being a doctor, why don't you go to med school? oh i forgot, the jamb requirements are too high for some intellects to cope with.

My mother studied in UK. She retired from Lagos University Teaching Hospital. She headed the department of Microbiology and Parastiolgy for many years. The stretch of balcony of that department overlooks directly Hall 36 and the car park adjoined to it. Underneath is the massive kitchen where the Hospital uses for cooking meals.

STOP YEARNING NONSENSE

I am not ''yearning'' nonsense.
Just wondering why in thirty years she never told you there was a post of 'director of administration'

Its funny how Nigerians can be ignorantly and annoyingly gullible , based on the level of stereotypic ignorance and non-wittiness emanating from this thread

Nigerian doctors are not new to playing politics (both local and Nation, and even the cheap type which seems to be their AOS )

Nobody (in the health sector or elsewhere) is inevitable/ indispensible /or useless. Each man to his tent. Everyone has his callings, his his roles and his aspirations, and this shouldn't be dictated or controlled by another

[size=20pt]And finally, because everyone wants to be/loves/talks more about a striker, DOESN'T MAKE THE GOALKEEPER (even the one on the bench/reserve) LESSER IN THE TEAM. A team is as strong as its weakest link, except of course, if it is anarchical. [/size]

I wish Africans are more philosophical than psychological

tunesoft:


Gloria Iheanacho writes. And i found it interesting.

I am a Medical lab scientist in one of the state hospitals. I have this strange feeling for doctors, hatred is the extreme form of what i feel about them. Its nothing personal. My family are JOHESU-mother is a nurse practising in the US for more than 16yrs, father is a pharmacist. 2 of my siblings are pharmacist and one a nurse. My mother watched the sunrise daily yesterday and kept on screaming. Theres no place in the US in which the other health workers heads. They are usually headed by doctors. Not all nurses are made consultants. You talk about consultant nurse when you talk about the legal aspect and they dont work in hospitals. Relativity is maintained everywhere in the health sector. Whats the debate about?
As hard as it is for me to write this, i want to be on the side of truth. The doctors in this country are not given the necessary respect that they need. Personally, i have read the 24 point demands and i think theres so much sense in it. The FG needs to do something about this. Lets join our hands and build our health sector. Health they say is wealth

invertedHammer:

You have no iota of idea of what you are talking about. Government hospitals like Veterans Medical Centers (the biggest Federal funded hospital chain in USA) are not headed by medical doctors. Some doctors are in what will best be described as Board of Directors. But the overall head is usually someone trained in Business or Healthcare administration. The overall head known as the Secretary of VA Mr. Shinseki thst just resigned has M.A in English while Mr. Sloans who is the acting Secretary now has M.A in Economics. It is pertinent to note that each facility has a director and I am yet to know any facility that has a medical doctor as the overall head. You can Google their website at www.VA.gov to educate yourself. Hospitals in US are run as corporations that they are and not as "ego massage parlours".

dremmy:

Before you sell your garbage, Nigerian hospitals have Director of Administration (DA) that oversee the administrative Sides of the hospitals and the Board of directors appointed by either the state or federal government. This board is the highest decision making body in the hospital. Now can you leave the US abit? Can we focus on how the British NhS hospital Is run? because the last time I checked our health care and even all university degrees were modelled after our colonial masters! Can you please stop the US crap?

I would take Yeovil hospital NHS as an example. It's headed by a CEO Dr Lucy more. Who is a specialist. The hospital also have board of directors that are 14 in number. Don't bring out yourself with your cheap reasons. We know America is a place where everything goes because of their complicated health system.

Do you want me to educate you on the health system of western Europe? Of course they are modelled like that of the UK! India and China the medical directors are medical doctors too while the managerial components are health with by managers who may or may not be doctors.
So your argument holds no water!
Also, if your Johesu says doctors and paramedics should earn the same salaries, is that how it's done in your almighty US? For your info the head of the labs in hospitals in UK and US are pathologists(specialist doctors) and they earn over a median of $250k while the lab scientist like your mum in US don't even hit 6 figures! It is the same story in UK and the discrepancy is even worse in UAE and Qatar! RELATIVITY is the rule but only JOE HATES YOU doesn't see that!

/

dremmy:
And the reason for working yourself towards Stroke is ...?

I responded to Gloria Iheanacho's article where she stated, "Theres[sic] no place in the US in which the other health workers heads. They are usually headed by doctors".

Reading your post again, I can see that you are a very confused human being. Are you responding to my piece you quoted or to the
same Gloria Iheanacho that mentioned her mother as a lab scientist?

I hope someone with comprehension problem like you is not among those clamoring to be treated as demi-gods.

\

sisinaijayeye0: All this pharmacy nurse thing is thrash if you wanted to be a doctor or leader of the health team then you should have studied medicine, soon bricklayers would be telling architectures what to do, people should learn their place and love their jobs simple!

you writeup is thrash,mst everyone be doctor?

Pls can someone answer this question: Is johesu asking the fg to make the salaries of all health workers be the same? if yes which nations model are they copying cos it seems both johesu and nma seem to claim they're copying a particular country/countries

They never ask anything of such. The salaries, benefits,: allowances of doctors have always being, for many years now at least double or almost double the closest group in the health sector to them.

The OP and his cohorts are being disingenuous here: so just because WHO had been electing doctors as her DGs to date, would it mean that this example by this one single organisation should be copied worldwide in the appointment of heads of the health sectors?

It is also worthy to note (according to the article i.e. if you read carefully) that these DGs were in fact elected and therefore popular choices of the combined UN countries as opposed to appointed therefore impositions - which in the Nigerian context include: minister of health, CMDs, ES or DGs of Hosp mgt boards, and even commissioners (at state level) - all being coveted as exclusive by doctors for themselves.

The mistake which doctors make in such arguments and in their stale over-used rhetoric is to confuse the skill required to manage a patient (which is essentially medical) and the skills required to run an organisation such as a hospital, ministry, parastatal etc.; which are purely administrative and therefore quite different.

To suggest that you must qualify as doctor in order to head a hospital or be the minister of health is a fallacy and quite disingenuous to say the least; because being a doctor does not guarantee anybody being a good administrator - this is the position of the much dreaded JOHESU.

Prior to the Babangida/ Olukoye Ransome Kuti era, hospitals used to be managed by a neutral set of professionals known as Hospital Administrators, everything then was ok until when these ppl were replaced by doctors as CMDs that was when the whole trouble began.

JOHESU are therefore saying, you do not need a doctor's skill to head/run a hospital but hospital experience and sound administrative skills.
Therefore either revert back to the situation ante, of Hospital Administrators or open the headship to all suitably qualified health workers as well as substituting the title CMD for CEO (or similar), so that doctors would not mistakenly confuse such appointee as performing the function of a physician.

Everyone needs to read this thread. A sane Doctor's point of view.

I expect a lot of emotional effusion, backlash and anger from our doctor friends.

Have a good read.

https://www.nairaland.com/1802945/doctors-selfish-dr-adewale-owolabi-m.b.b.s

InvertedHammer:




/

dremmy:
And the reason for working yourself towards Stroke is ...?

I responded to Gloria Iheanacho's article where she stated, "Theres[sic] no place in the US in which the other health workers heads. They are usually headed by doctors".

Reading your post again, I can see that you are a very confused human being. Are you responding to my piece you quoted or to the
same Gloria Iheanacho that mentioned her mother as a lab scientist?

I hope someone with comprehension problem like you is not among those clamoring to be treated as demi-gods.

\

My point is: Naija's health system is modelled after the British. I was responding to 1. Lanrefront whose Lab scientist mum who had worked for 30 years tells him how pungent doctors were. and 2.Invertedhammer who quotes his almighty US without even knowing that both health structure and medical education in US is clearly set apart from the rest of the British commonwealth.

And yes, i might have not quoted lanrefronts comments to join to your own crap and i guess thats what makes me a stroke patient and a psychiatric person too.
However, if it's the demi god status of doctors that is giving you sleepless nights, if its what is giving you a huge colic, then I suggest you my friend to go jump off the cliff!!

Dr. Adewale Owolabi is a health expert. In a chat
with OMIKO AWA, he bares his mind on the
ongoing strike by the Nigerian medical doctors.
Could you say the agitation by the Nigerian
medical doctors is for the good of all and better
healthcare for the country?
I think in trade dispute you see different unions
particularly when government is an employer,
acting for either benefit or condition of service
review. I don’t think the case of the Nigerian
medical doctors is an exemption; it is just that,
sometimes, either the frequency or the reason or
the process used in getting their grievances or
voices heard are where the issues lie and not so
much whether they should protest or not. It is
not what they are protesting for that really
matter, but what channels have they used to get
them through and how patient are they, giving
the sensitivity and the importance of their role in
the society. I think those are the things we need
to look at.
Would this strike not cause groups like the
pharmacists, laboratory technicians and others
associated with medical doctor to also go on
strike?
I think the way strike or industrial disputes go in
Nigeria is, when one part of the medical group
calls it off, the other groups pick it up. When the
doctors finish their agitation, the nurses,
laboratory workers or the pharmacist will pick up
theirs. Sometime instead of working as a team,
you see them not flowing in the same direction. I
spoke with one of my colleagues in government
service about the strike, and he said, sincerely he
does not know the reason they are going on
strike. He was on his way to meet his medical
director that he does not see any reason for the
strike and this shows, sometimes, how loose
some of the reasons for the strikes are. And
looking at some of them, I discovered that a lot
of them are really selfish; they are about
condition of service, they are about some thing
that could be discussed if given enough time to
engage the public. For instance, I gathered that
they want the structure of the Teaching Hospitals
and Federal Medical Centres to be amended, they
want the Medical Advisory Chairman to have
deputies — four for Teaching Hospitals and three
for Federal Medical Centres. They want hazard
allowance of a minimum of N100, 000 per
month, they want the process of climbing the
ladder to level 17, which is the directorship, to
be unhindered and by virtue of seniority and
whether the person occupying the position is to
be addressed as director or not, they want the
appointment of the Surgeon General of the
Federation . I could remember, 24 years I left
Medical School, the issue of Surgeon General was
on and I ask myself, if all these conditions are
met, will it improve the healthcare of the nation?
Will it make the Teaching Hospitals to work
better? Will it improve the attitude of the medical
team? Will it make the health indices that is
abysmal for us as a nation to improve — that is
talking about the maternal maternity rate, infant
mortality rate, the communicable diseases and
other health issues facing the nation. Would it
make medical outcome better, would it reduce
health tourism to India, a third world country like
us, to stop? Would it make Nigeria to be a
destination where people can get good medical
care? Looking at this, I must say my guess is as
good as yours.
I think the doctors are a bit selfish. I look
forward to seeing a period when our medical
doctors would match out on the streets to say
because our mortuaries are smelling, they will
not go to work until they put them aright. Go to
some hospitals and see the bad state they are
and you begin to wonder why don’t the doctors
working there to use them as the basis of
protest. It is because of this that I say the
protest is selfish. It is selfish because we are not
doing the right things that should make us get
up as a nation.
Are you then saying the strike should be called
off?
It takes two to tango, but I am not sure
government is listening because any little thing
government officials will fly to America or the UK
for treatment. And if they are listening, I am not
sure they are listening enough. Unfortunately, you
don’t hear that a minister is admitted in one
Teaching Hospital, except some months back a
governor had an accident and was admitted at
the National Hospital; that even made the news.
So, the people you are talking to are not listening,
any little thing they fly, they all have their private
doctors and the means to travel abroad, even
when we treat malaria better than those doctors
they going to meet abroad.
However, all this boils down to the type of
government we have as a nation, I think
government on its own part is not sensitive to the
plight of the people. Government has not done
enough; they should have engaged the doctors to
make sure this does not happen. Also, the doctors
should have engaged the public, give enough
warning to sensitise the public about their
actions. It is like the Police Force or the Armed
Forces going on strike. The medical profession is
a sensitive profession that you should not allow
for a break in their services. I don’t think the
government and the doctors have shown enough
maturity on the strike; there are egos flying here
and there and I don’t know if these doctors even
use the public hospitals or if they too fly abroad.
What does this strike portend for the nation and
lives of the people?
My colleagues should go back to work, public
opinion is not in our favour; in fact, the public
does not see us as people that protect lives or
have value for lives. They do not see doctors
contributing to their well being anymore, they see
us as people they need to go to because they
have no choice. I am appealing we go back to
work and engage the government more
constructively; we should go to the public domain
and elicit a debate. I don’t think a teacher
earning N40,000 per month would be excited by
the fight of the doctors for N100,000 hazard
allowance, I am not saying the work doctors do
are not hazardous; in fact, every work we do has
some measure of hazards built in them, so
everybody wants hazard allowance. I tell you if
doctors are answered based on this, those who
handle blood in the lab, the radiographers,
nurses who dress wounds, even cleaners in the
hospital will demand for hazard allowance .
Doctors should go back to work and look for a
health system that would restore the dignity of
man, a system that would increase research, treat
the vulnerable people and think less of what goes
into our individual pockets.
We should rather engage government on the
health bill that has been dancing in the house; it
should be passed into law so that we can go
back to primary healthcare to ensure we prevent
diseases. The health bill is in fact a wholesome
package that would bring to end some of the
things agitated for by the Nigerian doctors. To
show you how insensitive government is to the
plight of the people, they are not talking about it,
don’t be surprised that while the strike lasts
political campaigns would be going on. If this
were the United State or UK you will see the
President or Prime Minister immediately
addressing the public, because they feel the pulse
of the people. Government needs to be proactive
because if you don’t value life as a nation, you
can’t enhance life.
SOURCE
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/sunday-
magazine-sp-509870158/169473-owolabi-both-
government-and-doctors-should-think-of-the-

when I see a Pharmacist address him or herself as Pharm. xxxxx, i immediately lose respect for the person. It is infantile and childish.