While NMA Local Chairman, Prof. Olayinka Buhari, believed that doctors are the pivot of any health sector, the PSN Chairman, Abdulmajeed Oderinde, said no health sector could produce a clear-cut leader, as the health sector remains a holistic entity.

  In separate interviews with The Guardian yesterday in Ilorin on the proposed July 1, 2014 nationwide strike by Nigerian doctors, Buhari and Oderinde disagreed on the current ratings of both the doctors and pharmacists in Nigeria with each claiming superiority over others in their areas of specialization.

  According to Buhari while justifying the strike declaration, “when we had explored all other options to no avail, then we will have no choice than to go on strike. When there is a serious breakdown in all the decent ways of negotiation, then we have to embark on strike as we have no other choice because if we don’t, Nigeria will not operate a good health system.

  “There are pending issues that need urgent attention in the nation’s health sector. For instance, the wages, the issue of Chief Medical Director (CMD) and whether or not it should be the exclusive right of the medical doctors. We want the government to listen to us because it has not been honouring its numerous contradicting Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with us. “

  Reacting to the Hippocratic oath by doctors at their induction ceremonies, which confers on them duty to save life, the medical don said the oath envisaged the need for employers of the doctors to perform their own parts of the employment contract “before we can keep our own aspect.”

  For Oderinde, Nigerian doctors have allegedly lost focus on their primary subject who is the patient. “They have allowed ego to set in, being a doctor has entered into their head. They think there is no other profession outside medicine. Even lawyers who described themselves as learned, talk on point of law. Let Nigerian doctors tell us a particular law that makes them the leader of the health sector.

  “In health sector, drivers of ambulances and even cleaners are very important. In the World Health Organisation (WHO), let them tell us the code that states that doctors are superior. I think the doctors are losing the sympathy of the public by these incessant strikes. The government is spending much money on them without much result. They are the last to come to work and first to go home. The consultants don’t spend up to eight hours on duty, yet they are heavily paid.”

  The PSN boss, who described the proposed strike as ill-timed citing the insurgency in the country, believed that doctors should not add to the growing list of problems in the country.

  He added: “I hope by going on strike, they should also close down their private clinics in the town. They simply want to shun government works, get paid even for not working and make more money in their private clinics at the expense of the innocent patients.”

  Buhari, who observed a serious threat to the health sector in the country if the strike should be allowed “by not meeting the demands of the doctors”, said only the CMDs and Chief Medical Advisory Counsel (CMAC) of the teaching hospitals would shun the strike “due to the high ranking posts they are holding.”

  He believed that there are two directorates in the public hospitals, which are Director of Personnel Administration and the Clinical Director. He added that while any administrator could head the first directorate, only medical doctors could be the CMD of public hospitals.

  For him, “why should someone who is not a medical doctor be claiming to be able to occupy the office of the CMD? Who do patients come to see in the hospital? Doctors of course. But today, all other health workers don’t want to see doctors.  Everybody has ganged up against us. In the United States (U.S.), doctors are the heads of hospitals and where doctors are not made the head, professional administrators are appointed. We agree that health sector is a team-work but when you have a team, one person must lead. For instance, in a plane, you have a cabin crew but the leader is the pilot. If they say doctors are not important, then fall sick and let us see how you will be healed.”