REPLY TO CRITICS OF NIGERIAN DOCTORS

Following is an abridged version of my comments in a conversation I had with some friends during the last doctors' strike. It personifies the mindset of an average Nigerian....as he vaccilates in his opinion of doctors....to a larger extent, hospitals....and expects his doctors to do the impossible...

....eke out a livelihood without his wages.
I have chosen to refrain from diluting the flavour....by presenting the comments unedited.

Enjoy......
"@Favour, you describe your country's doctors as hungry. As your country keeps her doctors hungry ably spurred on by people of your ilk, and other nations keep theirs well fed, would it be rude of me to question your IQ if you expect optimal performance from such hungry doctors?"

"@Eric, do you have a close relation who is a doctor? Why not talk to him heart to heart on a wide range of issues with emphasis on his financial health before unleashing your one-sided emotional outburst. What vocation or profession do you belong to? Do you routinely give discounts to doctors or refuse to get paid while rendering service or supplying goods to doctors? Your answer is most probably a no! What I see are landlords who throw out doctors even from buildings used as hospitals for rent default not mindful of the fact that the rent default is caused by payment default by patients especially emergency cases. It has happened to me before... Neither the judge, the landlord nor his lawyer considered the special nature of my job or the fact that my poverty was caused by indigent patients. I was publicly humiliated...thoroughly... and presented as an irresponsible felon! The town was Ikorodu..... And my hospital was named Tofunmi Medical Centre. So this is not some fiction. The hospital closed down, my wife left . She took my children along. My friends left. Except one whose magnanimity led him to pay the truck driver as I harried my property out of town! With my tail in between my legs! The western societies you allude to are more decent. A doctor gets to a bank and is asked to please step forward...ahead of others on the queue...none of whom bats an eyelid...as self- ingrained dignity leads them to recognise the special nature of his work.... And time. Not Nigerians who will rain abuses on a doctor for attending to an emergency just because such patient arrives after them! And notwithstanding the fact that the new patient, an accident victim was soaked in blood.... And the doctor with him.....as the doctor bore him in his arms. Also happened to me before... Severally... Of course there are a few selfless Nigerians out there. But I doubt if they would be as voluble...and their submissions be as bent as my dear friend! It cannot be business as usual when the doctor is the consumer at the mercy of creditors..... And humanitarian when he is the creditor! Consistence... Balance... Fairness.

Or do schools exempt our children from fees just because we are doctors?"

"@Ezekiel, reread my last comments in full. If your submission is still the same, I would know how unfeeling you are. If you say UK doctors are purpose driven, it is because their society is more responsible and that is why Nigerian doctors flock there. Out of a graduating class of 100 doctors, hardly can you have five stay back in your God- forsaken country to practice. And yet you treat these few with utmost disdain and contempt. I have told you a moving personal story and you respond as if some liquid other than blood flows in your veins. Totally lacking in compassion. And you expect me to view you or indeed some other patient with compassion. Forgetting that I am just human. Not superhuman. Remove the log in your eye before asking me to remove the speck in mine! If a doctor extends credit facilities to a Nigerian patient, the latter simply walks away with the money. Yet business, even in international spheres is done on TRUST. Goods are supplied and services rendered in advance in the firm belief that payment would be made. An average Nigerian is neither credit- worthy nor trust- worthy! More likely a cheat! A criminal! A thief! Ever travelled abroad?... To see how foreign immigration thrust fingers in our anuses and vaginas?. The whole world sees us as a bunch of unrepentant rogues! Pour your venom on your irresponsible govt... That cannot honour a simple agreement. What the govt doctors ask for is that this govt simply implements an agreement already signed and sealed! It would rather than do that, utilise the emotions of people like you to blackmail its doctors on a platter of Hippocratic oath!"

"@Eric: By the way, why does an average Nigerian momentarily and sporadically remember that the doctor deals directly with life and that his work is so important only when he is at the point of death? An average patient bears himself with disgusting guile and arrogance, says it to your face that he does you a favour by'patronising'your hospital. Defines himself as a customer and reminds you that'customers are always right'! Not only landlords but also govt agencies label hospitals as businesses and are too eager to charge us commercial rates. Vide land use charges plus other funny ones like effluent charges or advert rates on signboards. At variance with international norms, laws and conventions! The list is endless. How I wish you can watch me strive to tell patients that what I run is not a business but simply a medical practice...and that I attend to patients and not customers! Govt is harder to convince...as it embeds itself in revenue drive! Trust an average Nigerian to always try the impossible! Eat his cake and have it! He defines the rules... Yet refuses to accept responsibility for the outcomes! As he enjoys being called sir! As they do in hotels and eateries... When his pocket is laden with cash. Then the chameleonic tranformatioation! And the stricken cry of'Hippocratic oath'! Or'humanitarian'! When indigent. Would it be asking too much... To ask you to live by the rules that you create? Or would you rather yap about the effects. Rather than do an analysis of the causes. To find a solution! You endlessly talk of money. Yet, you have friends and relations who are doctors. Are they really financially soluble?"

Dr Tosin Akindele is a Lagos-based Medical Practitioner, a former Secretary of AGPMPN Ikorodu zone, a former Secretary of the Quackery Committee of AGPMPN Lagos State Branch, founder of Analytical Minds, a good health advocate and public affairs analyst.