Twenty six days on and numerous lives lost because we live in a society that rather wars than dialogue, a society with a government that is at best reactionary than proactive, a nation with no value for human lives and hence the people whose abode would be 6feet bellow after the strike would not matter, for decades the level of industrial disharmony has only worsened despite the persistent strike actions, in fact the system does not really benefit from the strike actions and the major casualty is the common man, the common man is short changed by government and further battered by striking professionals and in the end we all return to the system mostly in retrogression or at best stagnant! Lets have a rethink, there are better ways to hold government accountable without creating casualties of the people we claim to fight for... 

 

1) Produce a bill that amends the current act establishing the teaching hospitals and then get a sponsor within the national assembly to push it through with consistent lobbying to make sure it sails through. The bill must encompass universal health coverage through insurance, salary relativity with a unified salary structure that addresses differences in training, skills and responsibility, a workable health bill and health sector reforms that makes primary and secondary health care functional and reduces the burden on tertiary health centres. 

 

2) Institute a fresh action in court that would ensure a stay of proceedings and prevent the implementation of the current JOHESU demands. The fresh action would demand that JOHESU is unbundled so each of its professionals can make their individual demands without the current tyranny. 

 

3) To ensure that hospital management implements the previous agreements already reached, we could attempt to intimidate them to listen but not with a strike; for example i could decide not to prescribe as a matter of policy all the drugs stocked in the hospital as long as the alternatives are equally efficacious, we could also boycott the labs for routine investigations that clinical judgment might make irrelevant, we can also ensure inpatient care is minimized so that the hospital does not make any significant funds from patients that are admitted, a collective attempt by all of us to starve the boards and medical directors of cheap funds that they pilfer would make them listen to us! 

 

4) We then have to let the public know the harm government does when they advertise free health programs and fail to provide required manpower, drugs and equipment! The people should be made to ask the government how many doctors and midwives have been employed and not just how many hospitals have been painted.... 

 

5) Doctors should lobby so they are involved in training other health professionals that work in the hospital, the apprentice usually would not pick up arms against a master who trains him and is benevolent and respectful in handling him thereafter. Why would i not be involved in training someone who would interprete my prescription or take care of my surgical wound? 

 

6) We should also endeavour to educate the public on the roles of each member of the health team and then prosecute those that cross the lines. Any pharmacist that operates a pharmacy where he makes diagnosis and manages patients should be tried by a court of competent jurisdiction so that everyone learns his lesson and the current aggitations would end, any nurse who uses her spare bedroom to admit patients and give intravenous fluids should be sent to prison and any laboratory technician who parades as a medical doctor making diagnosis should be put in his place....

 

we also have to work on ourselves as doctors so we acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to manage patients better! 

 

7) There is no better time for us to reconsider how we do what we do as doctors. Society and government has ridiculed us and feel they do us a favour by patronizing us even as they and government dictate everything we do or fail to do. It is common place for a doctor to be harassed in the corridor of a government hospital and he is expected not to react simply because government employs most of us and shares peanuts from the oil wealth to us. Private partnerships that provide quality health care at a cost that we dictate on terms that we dictate is where the future of the profession lies if the profession would have a future! No nurse employed by a doctor would even contemplate a strike over her not being allowed to consult!!! Most of the smartest people by virtue of the education system we operate in Nigeria become doctors, we should show the world how intelligent we are by adapting to the peculiarities of this negatively peculiar society by conquering it with intellect even as we endeavour to enthrone global best practices....

 

A dissatisfied doctor is a licensed murderer!!!

 

By Ekitumi Ofagbor