| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naptu2: 8:30am On May 24, 2012 |
naptu2: Re: Federal Doctors In Lagos Begin Solidarity Strike For Sacked Colleagues by naptu2: 9:17pm On May 19
Unfortunately the doctors still haven't understood what's happening. How come ASUU, which has gone on strike more times than NMA, still has the support of the people, while the NMA has lost support? naptu2: Re: Federal Doctors In Lagos Begin Solidarity Strike For Sacked Colleagues by naptu2: 11:11am On May 20
1)When ASUU goes on strike they demand for better laboratories, libraries, etc. Of course they demand for better pay, but at the forefront of their demand is better labs, libraries, etc. The public can relate with this.
2) When members of the public ask questions and come up with contrary views, ASUU takes the time to explain the reasons for their agitation. ASUU does not insult members of the public.
3) Attempts to gain sympathy by talking about poor pay, etc will not succeed. Most Nigerian civil servants are poorly paid. They'll simply ask, "what makes you different?"
This is a democracy and in a democracy a good way to win your case is to get public opinion on your side. The NMA has certainly not done a good job in this regard. If they show love to the people, the people will love them back. How do you show love?
1) Go on strike, but allow some doctors to continue handling emergency cases. Use this as a publicity tool to show the people that, although you are suffering, you still care about them.
2) Expand your agitation. Yes, you want higher salaries, but that's not all you are agitating for. We want a universal medical insurance scheme, that'll raise money for the health sector and make it easier to handle emergency cases. We want better equipments, etc. This will convince the public that you are not just thinking about yourself, but you have their interests at heart.
3) Conduct research (ASUU is very good at this). You want higher salaries, but the government is complaining that your salaries gulp 60% of recurrent expenditure. Demonstrate, with facts and figures, that the government can afford the increase and that it has no excuse.
4) NMA has allowed the government to give it the reputation of a very troublesome organisation. To avoid this, the NMA should have insisted on getting everything it wanted at a go. Repeat strikes make you look troublesome. The NMA should also meet with trade unions/associations of other health workers and sort out the problem of disparity in salaries.
5) Hold regular press conferences, so that the public will hear your side of the story.
Lastly, the issue of salaries of political office holders has been discussed many times. A simple search on nairaland will reveal many threads dedicated to this topic. naptu2: The Telegraph
A doctors’ strike would betray their patients.
By Sarah Wollaston
Last Updated: 9:36PM BST 15/05/2012
The BMA is being unrealistic in opposing reasonable increases in pension contributions.
This week, the British Medical Association is trying to persuade doctors to vote in favour of strike action – the first such action since 1975. In doing so, the BMA proves yet again how out of touch it has become with the interests of patients and doctors alike.
When I joined the BMA after qualifying as a doctor in 1986, I was unaware that it was a union. I had assumed that it was a professional organisation supporting standards and education. And like most doctors, I joined mainly for a free copy of the weekly British Medical Journal, which at that time was the only way to find out what jobs were available.
Now, in a “Pension Ballot Special”, a BMA newsletter tells members that the association has no choice but to vote on industrial action for a “fairer” approach. It splashes on the 14.5 per cent that, crucially, only the highest-paid doctors will have to contribute towards their pensions. It claims, misleadingly, that no patients would be harmed by industrial action.
The BMA tries to persuade GPs that they could open for their usual hours during industrial action but not carry out any pre-booked or routine appointments, or issue any repeat prescriptions. Likewise, hospital colleagues are invited to turn up and make decisions about what is or is not an emergency. The results would not only be farcical but dangerous: doctors would find themselves facing an exasperated and irritated public. If that sounds unreasonable, well, the BMA industrial relations officer will be on hand to give guidance. He or she can expect to be very busy. The public is unlikely to have much sympathy.
Thirty years ago it was different. Doctors were relatively overworked and underpaid, but their vocation and professionalism commanded public respect. Then, thanks to a spectacularly mishandled negotiation by Labour in the 1990s, the much-needed investment in the health services went towards large pay rises, hand in hand with a reduced service to the public. GPs ditched out-of-hours work and Saturday surgeries because ministers misjudged the relative value of payments to doctors for these services. In other words, they failed to ensure that patients’ needs were paramount.
Labour also waved through the European Working Time Directive, which undermined continuity of care and, if anything, worsened working conditions and training for junior doctors. Assuming that all consultants were on the golf course or seeing private patients, the Government insisted that they should be paid only for the time they spent on NHS work. It should have come as no surprise that it ended up paying even more because of unpaid time that consultants were previously giving to the service for free.
A decade later, doctors are well paid and few GPs work Saturdays or nights; their out-of-hours work has largely been delegated to others and continuity of care has been eroded. The public are simply not going to feel sorry for striking doctors who earn more than £100,000 per year, sometimes for a four-day week.
To put the issue into perspective, doctors earning more than £120,000 pay 8.4 per cent of that into their pension pot. This would eventually rise to 14.4 per cent, but for those on a salary of £45,000, contributions would rise to just 9.3 per cent, an extra 1.4 per cent after tax relief. To get an equivalent pension in the private sector would require about a third of the same salaries – and doctors are living about 10 years longer than they did in the 1970s.
The rest of the country has woken up to the reality of pension costs – and we may soon witness what happens to a country like Greece, which has failed to do so. No government wants to pick a fight over public sector pensions, but to ignore demographic and financial realities would dump the burden on the next generation. Why should our children pick up the tab?
I hope doctors will follow at least one aspect of the BMA’s advice: “Whatever your views, it’s vital you vote.”
I’m often asked what the difference is between being a GP and an MP. One wag put it like this: “About £40,000 a year.” I would add that, as an MP, I now pay 13.75 per cent towards my pension, and work evenings and many Saturdays. Of course, one of the main differences is the way people feel about you. I hadn’t realised how much people respected doctors until I entered Parliament. That support matters, and a vote for strike action over pensions is a sure way to lose it.
Perhaps every doctor should ask a friend in the private sector how much pension they will receive, and how much they must contribute. They might be in for a shock. The BMA have made the wrong call; this is an unnecessary strike that would not be victimless. I sincerely hope that doctors will vote to put their patients first.
Dr Sarah Wollaston is Conservative MP for Totnes and a former GP
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9267399/A-doctors-strike-would-betray-their-patients.html
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| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naptu2: 8:47am On May 24, 2012 |
I was taught that even though your cause may be right, the way you go about making your case/demand is also very important. I pity my siblings and friends who have been put in this situation by the NMA.
1) The fact is that doctors are overworked. People often by-pass the primary and secondary health care centres and go straight to the tertiary hospitals, thereby over working doctors there.
2) Doctors face a lot of pressure and psychological and emotional trauma because they deal with human lives. How easy is it to watch a human being die? It certainly isn't easy.
3) Doctors work for long hours without rest.
The working conditions of doctors in Lagos is similar to the working conditions of policemen.
1) Policemen work long shifts, because we do not have enough policemen.
2) Policemen watch their friends/colleagues (sometimes best friends and neighbours, who are godfather to their cHildren, etc) die and then have to go back on the job the next day (without counselling/psychological evaluation), knowing that they could be next.
3) Policemen know that they could be killed the next minute and their family might not receive anything from the government, instead, they would be thrown out of the barracks.
4) Policemen work with little or no equipment. They have to buy and sew their police uniforms, fuel their patrol vans, etc from their own pocket. They lack bullet-proof vests, etc.
However, I would not support a situation where policemen would go on the street, block traffic and shoot people as a means of protesting their poor work conditions. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naptu2: 8:58am On May 24, 2012 |
It's a pity that we don't have enough civic awareness. I'd love to see patients and their relatives sue the Lagos State Government and the Lagos Doctors for criminal negligence. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by texazzpete(m): 11:14am On May 24, 2012 |
naptu2: I was taught that even though your cause may be right, the way you go about making your case/demand is also very important. I pity my siblings and friends who have been put in this situation by the NMA.
1) The fact is that doctors are overworked. People often by-pass the primary and secondary health care centres and go straight to the tertiary hospitals, thereby over working doctors there.
2) Doctors face a lot of pressure and psychological and emotional trauma because they deal with human lives. How easy is it to watch a human being die? It certainly isn't easy.
3) Doctors work for long hours without rest.
The working conditions of doctors in Lagos is similar to the working conditions of policemen.
1) Policemen work long shifts, because we do not have enough policemen.
2) Policemen watch their friends/colleagues (sometimes best friends and neighbours, who are godfather to their cHildren, etc) die and then have to go back on the job the next day (without counselling/psychological evaluation), knowing that they could be next.
3) Policemen know that they could be killed the next minute and their family might not receive anything from the government, instead, they would be thrown out of the barracks.
4) Policemen work with little or no equipment. They have to buy and sew their police uniforms, fuel their patrol vans, etc from their own pocket. They lack bullet-proof vests, etc.
However, I would not support a situation where policemen would go on the street, block traffic and shoot people as a means of protesting their poor work conditions. 1) Doctors are not going out to kill people. 2) Policemen do not spend up to a tenth of the time, money and effort in training that the doctors do. It can be argued Policemen have an easier job with pretty well defined uncertainties. Medical doctors have to diagnose with varying symptoms and treat a multitude of cases with different dimensions. if Lagosians were really suffering or concerned we'd have seen picket lines and protests marching calling for an end to the strikes and targeted at both the doctors AND the state government. Sadly, the cowardice innate in most Nigerians keep them at home, whining bitterly as usual. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naturalwaves: 10:30pm On May 24, 2012 |
texazzpete:
You gibbering cretin! Do you really NEED me to tell you that YES, if you aren't paid you get demotivated? You oafs love to fling about the words 'medicine is a calling' and 'love', forgetting that those words cannot pay for your house rent in Lagos. Why would you expect someone to forgo the chance to legally give his family a better life just because they should be 'Mother Theresa' like people?
Just because you got an A1 in Biology it doesn't mean you'd have made a good medical doctor.
Here's a fun fact for you: Nearly everyone in Nigeria with any power see themselves as 'tin gods'. get over it and move on.
the imbecility of your post above is proven by the large number of Nigerian doctors thriving in the UK. Why would someone hire a doctor to be 'carrying trays'?
As for the Nigeria - UK comparison, there's nowhere i said they must be paid the same. I am suggesting that the nIgerian society should show a similar level of respect and understanding to these overworked, underpaid professionals. These people spend their lives working in a dangerous environment with myriad of infectious patients carrying innumerable diseases. They have to sit through rigorous working hours that usually amaze all visiting regulators. Only 788 state doctors to 17 million Lagosians and people like you see nothing wrong!
To be honest, your words give away the lack of any reasonable processing power between your ears. I have seen no attempt to logically evaluate and analyze both sides of the argument before making an informed decision. All i see is the same regurgitated, stereotypical arguments that the lagos State government has been carefully feeding to halfwits like yourself...in a desperately egotistical bid to avoid shelling out peanuts to these doctors while they waste your tax money on frivolous things. Shamefully, you self-proclaimed intelligent folks swallow these lies hook, line and sinker. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naturalwaves: 10:32pm On May 24, 2012 |
texazzpete:
You gibbering cretin! Do you really NEED me to tell you that YES, if you aren't paid you get demotivated? You oafs love to fling about the words 'medicine is a calling' and 'love', forgetting that those words cannot pay for your house rent in Lagos. Why would you expect someone to forgo the chance to legally give his family a better life just because they should be 'Mother Theresa' like people?
Just because you got an A1 in Biology it doesn't mean you'd have made a good medical doctor.
Here's a fun fact for you: Nearly everyone in Nigeria with any power see themselves as 'tin gods'. get over it and move on.
the imbecility of your post above is proven by the large number of Nigerian doctors thriving in the UK. Why would someone hire a doctor to be 'carrying trays'?
As for the Nigeria - UK comparison, there's nowhere i said they must be paid the same. I am suggesting that the nIgerian society should show a similar level of respect and understanding to these overworked, underpaid professionals. These people spend their lives working in a dangerous environment with myriad of infectious patients carrying innumerable diseases. They have to sit through rigorous working hours that usually amaze all visiting regulators. Only 788 state doctors to 17 million Lagosians and people like you see nothing wrong!
To be honest, your words give away the lack of any reasonable processing power between your ears. I have seen no attempt to logically evaluate and analyze both sides of the argument before making an informed decision. All i see is the same regurgitated, stereotypical arguments that the lagos State government has been carefully feeding to halfwits like yourself...in a desperately egotistical bid to avoid shelling out peanuts to these doctors while they waste your tax money on frivolous things. Shamefully, you self-proclaimed intelligent folks swallow these lies hook, line and sinker. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naturalwaves: 11:38pm On May 24, 2012 |
Uhnn Texazzpete, Is getting demotivated enof rzn 2 stop d work in wich one was employed for even witout being owed salaries?
2)So d salaries of d doctors aren't enof 2 take care of their basic needs and families ryt? even though a gud no of them stay in d govt's qautres. It is d salaries of teachers,policemen, soldiers and all other persons dat is 2 sufficient 4 them ryt?
3)Ofcourse, getting an A1 and being brilliant doesn't make a gud doc. Isn't it evident 4rm d behaviour of d docs dat it takes more dan brains to make a gud doc?
4)Not only d doctors, every sector of d economy needs an entire review and overhauling. D docs shuld realise dis and b patient wit d govt.
5)U av dis way of trying 2 smuggle points illegitimately such dat 1 who doesn't pay attentn will get distracted and giv U an unjust thumbs up.Though 788 docs is a very small no,U painted d picture as if it's 17million Lagosians dat visit d hospitals daily.None goes 2 private,none uses herbal and they all fall sick evryday.ryt?I guess U aren't scientfically inclined so ur statistical blunder may be overlooked. And now,dat ur point has led u into trouble.Ans d following question;
Considering d small amount of doctors wich is 788.Is it d motivation U talked about dat will multiply them magically and then give them d superman power 2 handle d large no of patients or d employment of more docs? Dis has revealed again ,their own selfish interest and inability 2 set prioriorities ryt. D POINT I'M DRIVING AT IS DAT,D FIRST THING THAT NEEDS 2 BE DONE IS D REQUEST 4 D EMPLOYMENT OF MORE HANDS AND NOT MOTIVATION. U get that?
I love and respect the doctors but U're making me sound disrespectful 2 d profession wich I do not like.
6)Finally,I guess I'm getting 2 know U and I'v discoverd dat being abusive/disrespectful witout a just reason,is a hobby 4 U. I addressed d issue,u were unrepentant and was quick 2 divert 2 tax. Well,I hope U know dat Fed govt allocatn 2 Lagos state is abt 4billion naira monthly and cannot take care of a quatre of d state's needs.D state generates almost 20 bilion naira monthly internally 2 take care of her needs instead of grumbling 2 d fed.govt and ofcourse, TAX is a major source of d generatn and it yielded and is still yielding results xcept if U want 2 be sentimental. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naturalwaves: 11:58pm On May 24, 2012 |
alfablondy:
@ natural waves I like your response it shows you are very objective, unlike some Nlanders that argue out of points, not addressing the crux of the matter and refused to be convinced even when someone directly involve explain things to them. That is very good of you!
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| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by naturalwaves: 12:03am On May 25, 2012 |
@alfablondy,thank U.It's a 9ce thing dat U've been following all along.Thank U also 4 highlighting d important points in dat particular post. |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by AdeCharity: 12:46pm On May 28, 2012 |
Mynd_44: LAGOS — Indications emerged, weekend, that some of the 788 doctors sacked by the Lagos State government are now lobbying to get reinstated.
Investigations by Vanguard revealed that some of the doctors have started responding to the queries they had earlier refused to respond to. They are banking on the support of top officials in the ministry to influence their reinstatement.
An impeccable source from the Lagos State Ministry of Health, disclosed to Vanguard that some of the doctors that are making moves under ground confessed that they were already tired of staying at home as they have mouths to feed and bills to pay.
The source who pleaded anonymity, further noted that top officials within the ministry were still considering using their influence to get the doctors reinstated.
It was also gathered that the doctors’ request might be granted since even the ministry have been having challenge recruiting new doctors.
Currently, many of the doctors were not happy with the recalcitrant position of their leaders on their agitation but were cooperating in order not to rock the boat of the struggle.
“Even the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, National President, Dr. Osahon Enabulele is not happy with position of the Medical Guild on the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS, issue but he is afraid that he might be impeached if he fails to dance to the tune of the doctors. I had a meeting with him last Thursday when he confided in me,” the source said.
According to him, the elders in the medical profession were not happy with the way the sacked doctors have turned strikes into object of blackmail, saying they were ready to call strikes at the slightest provocation, stating: “Even if you mistakenly hit one of them on the leg, they may decide to call for as strike.”
It’s an attempt to break our ranks - Odusote
But in a swift reaction, the Chairman of the Lagos Medical Guilds, the umbrella body of the sacked doctors, Dr. Olumuyiwa Odusote, described the insinuation that the doctors were lobbying to get reinstated by the state government as a blatant lie, saying “it is an attempt to break our ranks.”
AGPMPN begins free health services
Meanwhile, Chairman Association of General Private Medical Practitioners, AGPMPN, Lagos Chapter, Dr. Olayinka Oladosu has announced at the weekend that beginning from today, the association would start offering free health services especially emergency cases to residents of Lagos carrying the cards of public hospitals following the total collapse of health services in public hospitals across the state.
He said: “We have about 84 centres across the state where people can access free health across the state. The information at our disposal about loss of lives is alarming and we are grieving about this. These are the lives we cannot create. We believe the provision of this service will provide succor to the masses.”
Oladosu said the AGPMPN, Lagos State Branch would not seat back and go against the Hippocratic Oath that its members had sworn to. “The association is not forcing any of its members to create this succour lines. Similarly, no one is forcing the AGPMPN to do it.”
Giving a breakdown of the facility created to address the problem of total shut down of public health facilities in Lagos; Oladosu said there would be an average of seven centres to serve as succor lines in each local government in Lagos State.
Explaining why this plan became necessary, the National President of AGPMPN, Dr. Anthony Omolola described the situation in Lagos as a period of sober reflection. “It is a time to sympathise with Lagosians,”
According to Omolola, the information at the disposal of the leadership of the AGPMPN is that the loss of lives this period is quite alarming and is grieving members of the association because “We cannot make life and we should not make life to be departed.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/sacked-lagos-doctors-lobby-for-reinstatement/ job vacancies in nigeria; click: www.wealthandhealth.com.ng |
| Re: Sacked Lagos State Doctors Lobby To Be Reinstated by Dagods(m): 5:54pm On May 28, 2012 |
:PNigeria""good people great nation.."HALLELUYA". :PNigeria""good people great nation.."HALLELUYA". |
