Obadiah Umaru, a concerned Nigerian wrote:

The last time NMA went on strike, Nigerians from all works of life pressed on government to look into their issues so that our hospitals will continue to offer services to Nigerians
Today, the hospitals are again shut down due to JOHESU strike and unthinkably, NMA have been the most vocal, not in to quell the impasse but to fuel it. They are insisting that government should not listen to, or meet the demands of, JOHESU. Their reason for the meddlesomeness in the many press releases and media engagement is to keep wide the gap of earned allowance between them and other health professionals. This is selfishness and greed.
I ceased to regard any medical doctor since I took my ailing mother to the hospital in the early 2009 and got disgusting and irresponsible treat from a consultant. He attended to my mum then wrote drugs for us to buy. I asked what he was treating, he said he was suspecting septicaemia so we should try so and so antibiotics. I told him it sounds like guess work. He kept quiet. I requested if we could be sure of what were are treating, he picked offence and started shouting. Demanding to know if I wanted to teach him his work. I said I was the customer/
client here and I should be the king. He said the only king in the hospital is the doctor. He was a young man so I thought it was untamed exuberance. While I was on the matter, a nurse came and over heard us, inadvertently, she asked if we has done lab test. The aggression with which the consultant shouted her down was marvelling. I wondered for a minute if it was his private hospital but I knew I was in a public hospital where all were employees of government. I asked why he addressed his colleague in that manner but he told me that the nurses and pharmacists were subservient to him. He told me how much he was earning and how much pharmacists earned, using it to justify his status. I was shocked.
I switched back to the prescription he had written and asked if we could be sent to the lab, he opposed it,saying that the most arrogant people in the hospital were the lab people. I asked how, he said, they have arrogated a title of scientists to themselves and don't want to work under pathologists. I was shocked as what that got to do with my mum's lab test. Within my 10min of being with him, he had skinned the nurses, the pharmacy and the lab alive. Then I knew the doctors were the real problems.
In summary, he insisted on treating without lab test. I was angry and left also without his prescription. I took my mum to a private laboratory and explained my situation. The lab tests showed leukemia and my elder brother in UK had to arrange for mum to undergo treatment abroad
Since then, I have followed keenly the disregard end humiliation that the doctors treat other health workers in Nigeria with the passive support of health ministers and commissioners. They often go the side of NMA during industrial disputes by quickly responding to demands of doctors and speaking English on demands others health workers.
I think the duration of study for doctors is only one year extra to pharmacists, lab scientists etc, yet they earn two times more than the non-doctors upon entering public service. Why is this so? Only doctors are heading hospitals and ministries of health in Nigeria. Why? This is not the case in other countries on Europe and Asia. Even the current DG of WHO is not a medical doctor. Where did the Nigerian medical doctor got his ego from to hold other health professionals in perpetual captivity? I call on JOHESU to break these ancient chains of slavery and emancipate themselves and our health system in Nigeria. The health system under ineptitude of medical doctors keeps recording abysmal indices year in year out to the extent that our President cannot find one health facility to treat ordinary ear infection.
I urge President Buhari to immediately sack the minister of health in view of his recent irresponsible comments on this ongoing strike. It is a pitiable anticlimax in our civilization
Lastly, the curriculum of MBBS should be reviewed to include civic education for would-be medical doctors in Nigeria. Their incivility is the cause of industrial unrest in the health system in Nigeria today

Since the current health workers strike in Nigeria, all the stake holders has been citing international best practices. The doctors under NMA and all other health workers under JOHESU has been at log ahead.
Both groups has been dishing out propaganda to the media. The doctors has claimed that they control all other departments and their services are at the doctors' beck and call, but JOHESU insists that the assumption is wrong. Doctors lack training and competence in some of these areas e.g physiotherapy/
medical rehabilitation. They are doctors too, they assess, treat, rehabilitate and discharge with all diagnostic imaging and lab tests privileges. Optometrists too are doctors both by operations and designation, they have spent 6yrs in medical school yet NMA said they are just support staff.
Nonetheless, JOHESU Leadership has come out to accuse the NMA doctors of ignorance, greediness and myopic thinking. Dr. Adewole the current Minister for Health has been proven wrong in regard to international best practices.
There could be bias from the Ministers. Today, both the minister of labour, senior and junior ministers of health are NMA doctors so the JOHESU strike that has paralyzed the health sector is rather a thing of politics for the ministers. You often see them on TV interviews double speaking. There is no gainsaying that NMA has colonized and made their birth right the offices of:
a) minister for health
b) minister of state for health
c) CMDs of all secondary and tertiary hospitals
d) Deputy CMDs
e) CMACs
f) directors of 90% of all parastaltas and health related agencies
g) the list is endless
NMA said the reason for coveting these offices is because other health workers are not "medically qualified" even though they all finished from the same college of medicine; took same or similar causes together or as separate departments.
Let's look at the so called international best practices. Lets look at the ministers of health of following countries:
1. France minister of health
Morisol Touraine.
She is not a degree holder. Studied At Ecole Normale Supereure and specialized in Economics and social issues.
2. Germany minister of health
Jens Spahn.
Studied Political science and Law at University of Hagen.
3. Saudi Arabia minister of health.
Dr. Tawfiq Al Ravish.
Obtain bachelor degree in Financial management and Mathematics, then 2 masters in computer science and information science.
4. Israel minister of health.
Yaakov Litzman.
Studied Torah and his first job was principal of Yaakov Girls school and then join politics.
5. Spain minister of health, social, security and Equality.
Dolors Montserrat.
A Lawyer and politician. She specialized in Real Estate and Environmental Law.
6. India minister of health
Jagat Prakash Nadda.
He a graduate of Law at Himachal Prakash.
7. Canada minister of health
Genette Petitpas Taylor.
She has bachelor degree in Social work.
Non of the above ministers study medicine and they are health ministers of their countries. Yet Isaac Adewole and NMA are saying our ministry of health institutions most be headed by medical doctors, ie. the international best practice.
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