THE PROBLEMS IN NIGERIA'S HEALTH SECTOR(4)
I have read a lot of articles published by other stakeholders in the health sector concerning the lingering crisis in our tertiary hospitals. A lot of meetings have equally been held on how to nip this problem in the bud. The aim of establishing JOHESU(Joint health sector union)is basically to fight doctors in our tertiary hospitals and anybody that doubts that will tell me why doctors are not part of JOHESU. Today one of the demands of JOHESU is that non-doctors should be allowed to become chief medical directors arguing that the post is purely administrative hence anybody can apply for the post. Following their line of argument,I think the security men,mortuary attendants,cleaners,ward maids,nurses etc should be allowed to vie for the posts of Chief medical directors in the tertiary hospitals.
If I say Nigeria is a country of mediocrities,I am sure that many people will even want to lynch me to death while others will say that I am not patriotic but our mediocre actions and demands show that or how will you explain a scenario where people were calling Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to lead the search for the abducted Chibok girls in Sambisa forest?Did American president lead the search for Osama Bin Ladin?As fools,mediocre citizens will always abuse any opportunity given to them hence the need to abuse the freedom of speech given to us by Goodluck Jonathan. In our present discussion,tell me how a set of people will gather under the umbrella of JOHESU to demand the headship of our tertiary hospitals even when their courses are classified under paramedical courses. It is akin to the cause of increased rate of divorce in our families today. The wife wants to be the head of the family so that the husband will now take up the roles of the wife just because the wife may be more financially buoyant than the husband.
Anytime,I see a headline talking about the crisis in our health sector ,I will be surprised because such topics are not adjudged publishable in a community owned newspaper let alone appearing as a headline in a supposed national newspaper. This matter ought to have been laid to rest before now but our government expectedly will be very slow in taking any decisive action until the matter will reach the level that our present security challenges have reached. My question is,when these JOHESU members applied for their courses in their respective tertiary institutions,were they not given the orientation that there courses fell under paramedical courses?This scenario can be likened to members of our paramilitary(like customs,prisons,civil defence etc) demanding to be chief of defence or chief of army staff since that is also an administrative position. In fact following the line of thought of JOHESU,I am using this medium to apply for the post of Super Eagle coach and chief judge in any state since these positions are purely administrative. As a chief judge,I am there to assign cases to judges and as a Super eagle coach my work is to administratively guide the players who have their individual skills.
Having seen this level of mediocrity in the country,a pastor woke up one day to tell us that God had anointed him to be the next Nigerian president. The said pastor never contested for councillorship position in his ward or tested his popularity in his local government before coming out at the national level. He spent huge sums of tithe-payers money to finance his presidential campaign. I thank God that the pastor failed comfortably. Now,people that are trained to work under the instructions of doctors want to be the ones giving instructions to the doctors .I am not surprised that some unemployment-turned journalists have been publishing a lot of articles under this subject-matter in favour of JOHESU. Frankly speaking,I am not annoyed with these journalists that carry lopsided reports in favour of JOHESU because they are just trying to survive in the industry since no doctor is ready to bribe them as the demands of JOHESU are not only ridiculous but also not feasible in a country occupied by sane citizens.Do you think I will be surprised if i wake up one day to hear that a blind man has sued Stephen Keshi and NFF for refusing to choose him as a super eagle goalkeeper since section 42,subsection 2 of our constitution states that :No citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his birth? In the same vein,I will not be surprised in this our country if one day gatemen in the bank threaten to go on strike because they want to be promoted to the post of bank managers since that post as my JOHESU friends will argue is purely administrative.
Meanwhile,let us critically analyse JOHESU demands,they want to become consultants in their fields that means we will soon have consultant cleaners,consultant ward maids ,consultant security men,consultant mortuary attendants,consultant generator operators,consultant nurses,consultant radiographers etc and as consultants,they will be consulting in their clinics which will be opened soonest. If a patient has any security challenge,he will be referred to the security clinic for further expert management and the consultant pharmacist will attend to patients that want other drugs apart from the ones prescribed by doctors. I thank God that I exist in this time that these ridiculous JOHESU demands are made. The truth is that if I had read these demands as part of history I would not have believed it but now it is happening before me that a nurse with RN or Bsc certificate wants to become the head in a tertiary institution where medical consultants work. Wonders,they say,will never end,will I now be surprised in this country if my security man holds me hostage one day demanding that I must prepare a timetable on how two of us will be sharing my wife?
Anybody that sees Chinua Achebe should please inform him that he made a mistake of writing THINGS FALL APART when nothing had fallen apart,in fact he should come back to see where patients are dying in our hospitals because of demands that should be best made by our renown comedians like Mr IBU and Osuofia in Nollywood. It is now I understand why they say Nigeria is a land of great opportunities. No wonder a sitting governor could fly helicopter by himself and we all saw how it ended. As clowns,the next interpretation we are waiting for is the phrase 'medically qualified'.I think our government expectedly,will set up committees and commissions to interpret that phrase and after that,another committees and commissions will be set up to interpret the interpretations of the first committees and commissions and the cycle continues indefinitely into a chain reaction.
My friend that studied management told me that when one employs an amateur one will end up paying three times what should ordinarily have been paid to an expert. That is exactly the reason for setting up many committees and commissions to interpret what an expert would have been laid to rest in the first instance. The court held that the post of a chief medical director is an exclusive preserve of professionals that are medically qualified not paramedically qualified. My question then is: why are we still wasting time with the phrase medically qualified?My JOHESU friends will tell you that their profession is not under paramedical courses,the same way a civil defence officer or a custom officer will brag that his profession is not under paramilitary. I thank God that the dictionary is clear on differentiating between medically qualified and paramedically qualified.
I will not end this piece without remembering an incident that occurred during my house job. Nigerian nurses do their own ward round just like doctors when in the actual sense of it,the nurses are supposed to be part of doctors' ward round so that they will tell the consultant their own observation for optimum management of the patient. On that fateful day,a consultant was with his team of doctors on a patient's bedside,the matron with her own group of nurses came to the same patient,the matron started asking the patient questions even when the consultant was still with the patient. The consultant, politely told the matron to attend to other patients and to come back later but the matron ignored that plea and the consultant left both the patient and the ward for the matron. I thought the consultant would take it up but that was the end of the matter.
The above scenario explains the plight of doctors in the health sector,all non-doctor health workers in the tertiary hospitals gang up against them. I just laughed when I heard that the meeting JOHESU held with the secretary to the government of the federation granted JOHESU members the position of directors, consultants in our tertiary hospitals and the chances of becoming chief medical directors in our tertiary hospitals. Those decisions reached in that meeting can be likened to a disgraceful incident that occurred in the PLAY OF THE GIANTS by Wole Soyinka where an illiterate head of states instructed the central bank governor to print more money so that the head of states could execute his projects without recourse to the inflationary effects of such exercise. I believe that the way our dear country is moving,soonest the positions of chief judge and attorney-general either of the state or the federation should be open to everybody in the ministry of justice starting from the gatemen upwards since section 42 of our constitution gives every Nigerian citizen inalienable right to freedom from discrimination. I will be happy in this our country of possibilities when we will have consultant drivers,consultant library attendants,consultant footballers,consultant carpenters ,consultant lawyers,consultant judges,consultant senators,consultant pastors etc. Also,the phrase 'medical doctor' in Nigeria will soon be expanded to mean any paramedical course up to the level of PhD since professionals from paramedical courses are now waiting for the interpretation of 'medically qualified' and not 'paramedically qualified'.
In Nigeria today,laboratory scientists are already answering lab doctors,radiographers are answering scan doctors etc. It is a matter of time,JOHESU will have a branch in our general hospitals hence they will continue their fight to head the general hospitals,thereafter,JOHESU members will have the rights to open their own private hospitals. Who says that JOHESU member cannot head a Nigerian medical school or faculty where doctors are produced since the function of the dean is purely administrative?Is it not in this country where NCE-holders with entry requirements of 150 UTME cut-off marks and about three credit passes in O'level subjects are employed to teach students that are expected score at least 280 in UTME and credit at least five O'level subjects. Nigeria,my country,is really a land of great opportunities.
DR PAUL JOHN.
08083658038
(Port-Harcourt based medical practitioner)