The incoming Federal Government could appoint seasoned manager from any discipline to head the Federal Ministry of Health, while all professionals in the sector are allowed to reach the peak of their career to help bolster present efforts to restore harmony and enhance health service delivery in the nation, says President, Guild of Medical Directors, Dr Tony Philips, during an interaction with select journalists at the weekend in Abuja. Health Reporter, MARCUS FATUNMOLE, was there. Excerpts:

 

Experiences in the country have always shown that private health facilities do better than the public hospitals. Would you support privatization of public hospitals to make them more functional?

 

Comparing the private and private sectors in terms of function, I can speak because I was in the public before I crossed to the private. In private, there is no protocol. I want to buy a cotton wool; I pick my money and buy cotton wool. In the public, you write letter, it goes from table to table. Before the cotton wool comes out, the patient is dead. We want result in the private sector; public sector, no result. They don’t care about that.

 

Again, in the public sector, there are times they refer to private sector as running after profit; it is wrong. We work in a very unfriendly terrain in the sense that we are talking about creating enabling environment for the private facilities in terms of getting loan from the bank; you go to borrow money from the bank to make your facility work. The government has the money, but it is lost down the line by many ways. That is why money that should have gone into health for years has never got there. They divert the money meant for health into other sectors.

 

That is why you have this out-of-stock syndrome, a lot of problems. That trickles down to affect the numeration of workers, which makes them fail to keep the terms of their employment, which now leads to strike. The employment terms that was given to you, you won’t adhere to it. No one wants to work without getting his or her remuneration for working. For the private, we pay salaries, we buy our things; we want result. That is why we are appealing that government should make the environment conducive for us…

 

 

I think privatization will help, because it will make things function better. That is why the government wanted to establish the World Health Hospital and Diagnostics in six geo-political zones of the country. The whole idea is to sell that off and invite private people to go in. All these protocol things will be cut down, and the standards will improve.

 

Apart from privatizing the public hospitals, are there other ways your association thinks rivalries in the public health sector can be resolved?

 

Let people know what they are trained to do and just face that. We, as doctors, are never envious of those working under us because we all start the first journey in the medical school. It is down the line that we start branching off. After two years, everyone goes his or her way. Lab goes, pharmacy goes. But the dogged ones continue. It is those two years that you decide where you branch. If you know this, you will stick to your job and be proud of it. There will be no problem. It is when you want to encroach that there is problem. Let’s take for example, when you go to a pharmacy to buy drugs; in the pharmacist’s office, there is a stethoscope, they use it. We are never envious of them. But, now, they want the doctors to come down, which is not proper. That is what is causing these fracas and frictions.

 

Apart from the above, what else can government do to stop the mess?

 

JOHESU put up 53 demands to the government and the government in its wisdom set up the Yayale-led committee. The committee has submitted its report. It is now the duty of the incoming government to implement that report. Part of the problem earlier faced by government is that it used to deal with health care practitioners in the public sector individually. So, if government wanted to negotiate salary with the doctors, it dealt with the doctors separately. So was it with other professionals. There was confusion. What the committee has recommended now is that if government wants to do such a thing, it should invite everybody together so that there will be harmony, because it will be unfair to increase the money of the doctors while others do not get increment.

 

Does it mean that it is only doctors that are working? That is one of the things. Another area that other health professionals are justifiably fighting for is that all of us went to university. Some of these professionals are restricted from getting to the top of their profession. Some of them cannot become director and reach level 17. So, you can imagine that somebody who read history can get to director of administration. But, somebody who read pharmacy cannot become director of pharmacy. That pharmacist will feel very bad about it. That is discrimination, and it is against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Such thing should not really happen. Every professional should be allowed to reach their peak. Nobody should stop the other person from reaching their peak.

 

How relevant would you say the private health institutions are to the nation today?

 

I am sure we all aware of the private sector to which the guild is known to render about 70 percent of health care practice in the nation. The incoming government should not overlook the roles of the private sector in its appointments. It is very important that the private sector be taken into consideration when they are considering people who should sit on key medical positions in the country, because it will help the government to achieve what it wants to achieve better. For the private sector to operate efficiently, there are certain things that must be done. First is the enabling environment for our doctors to operate. What happens in India today and other places is not because something is happening in the sky, it is because government created an enabling environment for them to operate. The situation of multiple taxation in this country, and in most of the states, is making practice very difficult for our colleagues. And, the inter-sectoral fracas is also a problem. It is time we knew that in the medical practice, there are strata. There are different disciplines and there are different functions. The whole idea is to work as a team to achieve the goal and the central figure is our patient. So, I think it is time for government to look into this aspect of multiple taxation; creating enabling environment in terms of creating facilities for private sector to access loans in banks, and things to work with to enable them carry out their functions. The other disciplines should also know that if we concentrate on our specialties and work as a team, because it is a matter of team work, our patients will be better off because it is this crises among various professionals that lead to incessant strikes. It is time we got ourselves together and solve this once and for all.

 

Do you have any word of advice for Nigerians on their health?

 

We are here is to advise the populace on many things, to tell them what to do and what not to do as far as health care is concerned. This includes lifestyle, which we now know is leading to a lot of problems. Among our populace, there is a lot of cancer problem, a lot of diabetes, a lot of premature deaths. In fact, life expectancy has been known to be affected by our lifestyle. So, we are trying to use this medium to advise that people should make sure that they make comprehensive annual medical check-up as part of their routine.

 

What specific agenda would you set for the incoming federal government?

 

The first on the list is that incoming government should implement what is in the National Health Act; it is very important. Two, the government must carry the private sector along in whatever they are doing. Three, in any important medical decision to be taken, that affects the people of this country, medical doctors in the private sector should be carried along. In most cases, government sets up committee to deal with medical issues, you see no medical person from private practice there. Once the government can do this, we will make our contributions. I know one thing that normally brings problem is the appointment of the Minister of Health,. It is usually a controversial one. We are not after getting a doctor; but it must be somebody that can run the ministry and has some sense of business to run the ministry. The person must be a broad-based trained person to handle that post.

 

by MARCUS FATUNMOLE