The writer of this jung article is either he failed in his investigative Journalism or he went on line to search for illnesses and their diagnosis and made this rubbish article from it.Some of his so called misdiagnosis and the management protocol by the said doctors has no place in medicine and cannot be practice even by a medical student in training.The writer of this article should drop his hatred for doctors and face the true reality of things in Nigeria.The working environment in Nigeria Hospital are appalling.No adequate funding of government hospitals and no facilities to work with

My family suffered from one of these doctors of death March 22nd of this year when my younger sister died of what may hv been avoidable death. When my sister got sick she was first diagnosed with gastric ulcer, then twisted intestines, then enlarged heart,then kidney failure, and finally stomach cancer. All these took about 7 months of carrying out one test after another followed by prescription & treatment for each supposedly ailment at an alarming cost both financially & emotionally to the family. My sister finally succumbed to her illness leaving behind 3 young boys & devastated family. Our hospitals are just a place where people go to die not places to get well. How can Nigerian doctors know what they're doing when it takes just 5yrs to go through medical school that don't even hv up to date medical textbooks not to talk of medical equipment that will aid in diagnosing sicknesses. In America it takes about 11yrs to qualify as a medical doctor & more yrs of practice to fo into a specialized field. In Nigeria all doctors cures every sicknesses.

sassysure:

The best hospitals u can get there are private but very expensive.

I witnessed the eye hospital in kaduna made somebody blind from misdiagnosis and wrong treatment.
Just like that.
That same hospital almost blinded one guy but he went outside the country to correct what they did. Had he not been on money, he will become a blind man. Both eyes.

Private with house officers is nonsense. Private with that no referral policy is a death trap.

Ahhh the story long o

most of these doctors who give out wrong diagnosis in naija and carry out fatal operations that lead to the death of the patients are not real doctors but quarks.nigeria is a country where anyone can do anything he or she likes and proper investigations are not given on who is real and who is fake.anybody can just wake up in the morning wear a whitecoat and put a sethoscope around his neck and claim he"s a doctor and ppl will start patronising him cos he can speak little english.na only nigeria e dey happen.the system in nigeria is so disorganised.

BafanaBafana:
I stopped taking my problems to doctors when I saw a doctor googling the symptoms I told her.
Me sef get smart phone and data abeg.

What that doctor did is totally unethical

RichDad1:
Most competent medical practitioners are finding their ways outside this country on a daily basis.
What we have now are mostly inexperienced doctors that have replaced their stethoscope with mobile Phones.

the competent doctors are being replaced mostly with quarks.ppl wey never smell med school but bought their MBBS under mango tree.nigeria has detoriated as such.

How does one report to this medical tribunal?
The process should be made public, when these doctors know they can be reported they'll be more careful.

There are some really good doctors also... I can attest to that

BafanaBafana:
I stopped taking my problems to doctors when I saw a doctor googling the symptoms I told her.
Me sef get smart phone and data abeg.

wikepedia doctor .many no dey attend class again.u can now buy ur mbbs under tree if u get the cash just d way u buy some other degrees in naija.naija don condemn i tell u and not to mention the lack of modern facilities in most hospitals in nigeria.

The write up is very true, but then, the problem is not that of the Nigerian doctor, rather it’s a systemic issue.

Doctors are supposed to specialize in a particular specialty, and once they are consultants in that field, they get better and gain proficiency by attending to patients with complaints related to that field alone. They do their work with the aid of latest diagnostic technologies. The bedrock of this system is based on the fact that the primary health care centers work efficiently to screen patients that would need to see a consultant and send them to the appropriate specialist.

In Nigeria however, the whole system is on a mess. The primary health care system is virtually non existent, as most primary health care centers in the country do not have doctors, or at best doctors doing their NYSC posting. The nurses and community health officers in these PHCs would label all patients with fever as having malaria and typhoid.

The story at the general hospitals is not too different. There are doctors in these facilities, but they are grossly overworked. Most general hospitals in the country have less than 10 doctors in their employ. Take a stroll into any general hospital and you would see one doctor battling to attend to more than 50 patients in a day. All manners of patients are here to see the doctor, and he has less than 4 hours to attend to these patients. At best he can spare 5 minutes per patient. How can the doctor effectively diagnose and treat a patient in less than 5 mins and we expect not to have cases of misdiagnosis?

At the tertiary hospitals the story is not so different. Here we have the consultants and professors, but then the bureaucracy here makes this the last option for most patients. The patient keeps going round in curl legs and making endless queues before they can meet the consultant. There are a few medical officers and residents who do the most work of filtering the patient and sending them to the appropriate specialist clinics. At the specialist clinics the consultants do not have the appropriate diagnostic devices to make appropriate diagnosis, and when they make diagnosis, they do not have the appropriate medical devices to treat the patients. All this is compounded by the fact that drugs sold in the country are either fake or substandard and do not work as required. Did I also add that the consultant has his own private hospital because of course what the government pays him is not adequate, and so he only spends less than 4 hours in the teaching hospital before he runs down to his own hospital to make some real cash.

The problems are multifaceted, and does not lie solely with the Nigerian doctors. The fact that many doctors keep crossing the shores to other countries daily and these developed countries welcome them and some of these doctors excel in these countries goes a long way to show that the doctors are not the problem. It’s a system problem, and the government must be ready to invest in the care healthcare system of the country, strengthen the primary health care system, and invest in medical infrastructure in the secondary and tertiary health care systems for any improvement in the healthcare system in Nigeria to be achieved.

The other option of course is for the political class and the rich to jet off to any close by country they can afford to seek healthcare, and this unfortunately is the option that has been chosen by the ruling class in Nigeria for the past 3 decades or thereabouts.

Nigerian doctors excel everywhere they are worldwide! The problem is the system. The foundation year of a typical home-trained Nigerian Dr has been infiltrated by corrupt practice rampant in our universities especially the privately-owned! These products are poorly trained and behaved.The tertiary hospitals are not exempt from corrupt practices. this hinder effective diagnosis and treatment.

That is what you get in a country where quality healthcare practices have been sacrificed on the alter of partisan politics!
Nigerian doctors have decided to abandon their core areas in medicine and surgery to drag space with pharmacists in the pharmacy, medical lab scientists in the lab and other healthcare professionals, yet we lack medical experts in the various specialties of medicine!

I just pity the poor people of this country because our health sector is about to go into the worst state if urgent steps are not taken to call NMA and their cohorts to order!
When Nigerian government is ready to tackle the rot in our health sector, they'll appoint seasoned healthcare administrators to head our health ministry and even down to the smallest health institution.

For now, they're just playing politics with the lives of poor Nigerians. I weep for Nigeria!

UK and others Countries are busy taking away our best medical personnel. Health care is a team work, imagine if Barcelona losses Messi. The club will feel the impact. Nigeria is losing her best to other countries unless there is a huge investment in the sector, many will continue to leave. Even me am on my way out of Nigeria to the UK. I know about four Doctors that are good but now working in UK and USA.

DameB:


What that doctor did is totally unethical

Maybe or maybe not. She didn't make it obvious though. She did it codedly

BafanaBafana:

Maybe or maybe not. She didn't make it obvious though. She did it codedly

Oh ok

Nmaudu:
The write up is very true, but then, the problem is not that of the Nigerian doctor, rather it’s a systemic issue.

Doctors are supposed to specialize in a particular specialty, and once they are consultants in that field, they get better and gain proficiency by attending to patients with complaints related to that field alone. They do their work with the aid of latest diagnostic technologies. The bedrock of this system is based on the fact that the primary health care centers work efficiently to screen patients that would need to see a consultant and send them to the appropriate specialist.

In Nigeria however, the whole system is on a mess. The primary health care system is virtually non existent, as most primary health care centers in the country do not have doctors, or at best doctors doing their NYSC posting. The nurses and community health officers in these PHCs would label all patients with fever as having malaria and typhoid.

The story at the general hospitals is not too different. There are doctors in these facilities, but they are grossly overworked. Most general hospitals in the country have less than 10 doctors in their employ. Take a stroll into any general hospital and you would see one doctor battling to attend to more than 50 patients in a day. All manners of patients are here to see the doctor, and he has less than 4 hours to attend to these patients. At best he can spare 5 minutes per patient. How can the doctor effectively diagnose and treat a patient in less than 5 mins and we expect not to have cases of misdiagnosis?

At the tertiary hospitals the story is not so different. Here we have the consultants and professors, but then the bureaucracy here makes this the last option for most patients. The patient keeps going round in curl legs and making endless queues before they can meet the consultant. There are a few medical officers and residents who do the most work of filtering the patient and sending them to the appropriate specialist clinics. At the specialist clinics the consultants do not have the appropriate diagnostic devices to make appropriate diagnosis, and when they make diagnosis, they do not have the appropriate medical devices to treat the patients. All this is compounded by the fact that drugs sold in the country are either fake or substandard and do not work as required. Did I also add that the consultant has his own private hospital because of course what the government pays him is not adequate, and so he only spends less than 4 hours in the teaching hospital before he runs down to his own hospital to make some real cash.

The problems are multifaceted, and does not lie solely with the Nigerian doctors. The fact that many doctors keep crossing the shores to other countries daily and these developed countries welcome them and some of these doctors excel in these countries goes a long way to show that the doctors are not the problem. It’s a system problem, and the government must be ready to invest in the care healthcare system of the country, strengthen the primary health care system, and invest in medical infrastructure in the secondary and tertiary health care systems for any improvement in the healthcare system in Nigeria to be achieved.

The other option of course is for the political class and the rich to jet off to any close by country they can afford to seek healthcare, and this unfortunately is the option that has been chosen by the ruling class in Nigeria for the past 3 decades or thereabouts.

Drugs in the country at the moment are not substandard thanks to efforts of the current nafdac DG.

You seem to evade the main problem here which is misdiagnosis and wrong prescription of drugs. That is what the article is about!

Building PHCs will not even solve anything with the crop of doctors we have in Nigeria today! I wish our government can REASON!

eejo:
UK and others Countries are busy taking away our best medical personnel. Health care is a team work, imagine if Barcelona losses Messi. The club will feel the impact. Nigeria is losing her best to other countries unless there is a huge investment in the sector, many will continue to leave. Even me am on my way out of Nigeria to the UK. I know about four Doctors that are good but now working in UK and USA.

Nor be only you... Me sef I go soon japa... Once I am done I go do my usmle and go to where my skills will be needed and developed to make me an experienced professional. I cannot comman be a quack.. .

busomma:
My family suffered from one of these doctors of death March 22nd of this year when my younger sister died of what may hv been avoidable death. When my sister got sick she was first diagnosed with gastric ulcer, then twisted intestines, then enlarged heart,then kidney failure, and finally stomach cancer. All these took about 7 months of carrying out one test after another followed by prescription & treatment for each supposedly ailment at an alarming cost both financially & emotionally to the family. My sister finally succumbed to her illness leaving behind 3 young boys & devastated family. Our hospitals are just a place where people go to die not places to get well. How can Nigerian doctors know what they're doing when it takes just 5yrs to go through medical school that don't even hv up to date medical textbooks not to talk of medical equipment that will aid in diagnosing sicknesses. In America it takes about 11yrs to qualify as a medical doctor & more yrs of practice to fo into a specialized field. In Nigeria all doctors cures every sicknesses.

11 yrs u say. will u allow ur relative spend such year in school , beside , assuming they spent 11 yrz, how much can u pay them for services..

beside, this ur sister diagnose Nawa o..



meanwhile, Doctors aren't God,they only try their best. though we have some crook but they are just few% . pray to meet the good ones that are not exhausted with 9ja wahala..

You just need to look at our education system to see where the problem lies. Our culture that promotes sentimentality and mediocrity too doesn't help. The problem is not limited to medical field. I currently oversee an engineering project and I can say that the contractor's engineers know nothing and yet they have to execute this project and keep me worked up all days with no one seeing my plight despite several complaints. Nigeria each day I look around, I feel is in serious trouble. How far we can go like this, only God knows. It is quite sad...

Everyone outchea just shouting medical doctor this medical doctor that... How come these medical doctors excel in other countries. The problem is the system not solely the medical doctors. Some doctors do 48hrs of call in hospitals,do you have any idea what that even is,48hrs of endless work and u expect him not to misdiagnose.
We need to fix our system first. The experiences some people wrote here that they had are things that could have been picked at first visit if only we had standard hospitals and functioning equipments. I have been to a general hospital that told me there wasn't gloves to treat patient,which day person no go die for dat kind place. See ehn, our problem pass doctors o

busomma:
My family suffered from one of these doctors of death March 22nd of this year when my younger sister died of what may hv been avoidable death. When my sister got sick she was first diagnosed with gastric ulcer, then twisted intestines, then enlarged heart,then kidney failure, and finally stomach cancer. All these took about 7 months of carrying out one test after another followed by prescription & treatment for each supposedly ailment at an alarming cost both financially & emotionally to the family. My sister finally succumbed to her illness leaving behind 3 young boys & devastated family. Our hospitals are just a place where people go to die not places to get well. How can Nigerian doctors know what they're doing when it takes just 5yrs to go through medical school that don't even hv up to date medical textbooks not to talk of medical equipment that will aid in diagnosing sicknesses. In America it takes about 11yrs to qualify as a medical doctor & more yrs of practice to fo into a specialized field. In Nigeria all doctors cures every sicknesses.

What happened to ur sis is quite sad...however if the system were good,it could have been avoided. The natural instinct for a doctor in naija especially in rural setting is to diagnose using clinical skills...most nigerians run when u say do test,talkless of invasive tests as scans. A common headache sometimes might warrant CT scan or MRI but which naija person u wan follow tell that...but if we had a good health system with health insurance,functioning and modern hospitals these things are avoidable. A lot of nigerian doctors that left nigeria are excelling na. Mind you,there is no 11years of medical schl...its still 6yrs (except in the carribeans),however they go straight into internship programme ova dere unlike in naija where an intern will go and be managing one private hosp to gain experience

Sad news when love ones dies of misdiagnosed doctor’s report or they forget surgical instruments in their patients body. It is something alarming that the federal government needs to look into. The doctor comes out and tells you I’m sorry, they should be made responsible, their insurances should pay for wrongful diagnosis and death, the medical board should make every hospital or clinic have enough medical insurance liability before they open and not every doctor should be a surgeon, greed for money is making them to perform premature surgery and come out and tell you I’m sorry.
Though there are many bad hospitals both home and abroad, there are some good hospitals and doctors in Nigeria, one of such is this-Prime medical care in
Cocain village in Port Harcourt., though expensive, they will take good care of you surgically or any other diagnosis. My experience there was very impressive.

ikorodureporta:
By Lanre Babalola


Source: https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2019/10/26/doctors-of-death-nigerias-medical-misdiagnosis-crisis/

Useless post, doctors deserve better treatment than they are receiving in Nigeria......

DameB:


What that doctor did is totally unethical

You didn't see then here on nairaland telling people to Google and not disturb them?

/
This is bound to happen when a 18-years old (equivalent to 12 years old in developed nations) is goaded into studying Medicine and Surgery to feed the ego of the parents.

How many doctors in Nigeria independently chose the profession? For some, it was a juvenile fantasy gone wrong.

And now, they have ended up becoming merchants of death.

/

Quak doctors everywhere.... All this half backed doctors we have in Nigeria are the cause... And its high time Pple should start acting on their right by sueing this medical personnels to court... Pple go just go buy certificate and before u know them don call am to start operating on patients too bad...

Jaqenhghar:
Is there anything that works in that dump?

I beg your pardon?

Try corruption, nepotism, ritual murder, buying of votes.....a lot 'works' in Nigeria you know!

IGBOSON1:


I beg your pardon?

Try corruption, nepotism, ritual murder, buying of votes.....a lot 'works' in Nigeria you know!

LOL. You got me there

Dextre:
Everyone outchea just shouting medical doctor this medical doctor that... How come these medical doctors excel in other countries. The problem is the system not solely the medical doctors. Some doctors do 48hrs of call in hospitals,do you have any idea what that even is,48hrs of endless work and u expect him not to misdiagnose.
We need to fix our system first. The experiences some people wrote here that they had are things that could have been picked at first visit if only we had standard hospitals and functioning equipments. I have been to a general hospital that told me there wasn't gloves to treat patient,which day person no go die for dat kind place. See ehn, our problem pass doctors o

The workload is just as bad abroad if not worse. At least in Niggeria you are allowed to do whateber you want. Show up to work if you chose. Any doctor who thinks he is going on a vacation there is on a long thing

Bruzlinxy:

Useless post, doctors deserve better treatment than they are receiving in Nigeria......

How better do they want it? This is a place where if they like they show up to work and stil get paid. They misdiagnose and treat patients anyhow no one holds them accountable. What else do you want people to do to make them feel special? Do we have to erect altars and worship them?

Improve the healthcare system, equip hospitals and train the health professionals appropriately. Oh... The president has his doctor abroad, so who cares?

But if the number of doctors are declining rapidly, and you want doctors to be banned for lifecgeck again, who will treat those group of patients he's been taking care of?

I don't condole incompetence in any way, but will these news agencies also report good deeds of the said doctors?

ikorodureporta:
By Lanre Babalola


Source: https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2019/10/26/doctors-of-death-nigerias-medical-misdiagnosis-crisis/

Dextre:



What happened to ur sis is quite sad...however if the system were good,it could have been avoided. The natural instinct for a doctor in naija especially in rural setting is to diagnose using clinical skills...most nigerians run when u say do test,talkless of invasive tests as scans. A common headache sometimes might warrant CT scan or MRI but which naija person u wan follow tell that...but if we had a good health system with health insurance,functioning and modern hospitals these things are avoidable. A lot of nigerian doctors that left nigeria are excelling na. Mind you,there is no 11years of medical schl...its still 6yrs (except in the carribeans),however they go straight into internship programme ova dere unlike in naija where an intern will go and be managing one private hosp to gain experience

Here in America b4 u get into medical school u must've obtained a bachelor's degree mostly in science which takes 5yrs after which u go into medical school for another 6yrs,internship inclusive. Simple math gives u the number of yrs.
Thanks for ur sympathy though.