Currently, one of the sectors that has been misunderstood and therefore bruised, battered and left to lick its wounds, is the health sector.

 

As it stands today, both natural causes and man-made ones have conspired to wreck havoc on the system that should have been pampered, thus leaving behind unfortunate consequences.

 

On the front burner of issues in the health sector today in Nigeria is industrial action popularly known as strike, involving doctors on training commonly called Resident Doctors.

 

This has naturally called for the question on whether physicians should go on strike or not.

 

Of course, given different ways people tend to view issues, different interpretations have also arisen, giving room for the emergence of at least two camps, which, however, did not start today, but trace to the late 19th and 20th centuries, when most western countries opted for strike.

 

Yet, like those scholars would agree, it is only one and not both views for and against the resident doctors’ strike can be right

 

Whether it is Robert Nozick or his other Americans’ point of view, justifying strike, what is distinctive of these scholars is that their approach is enormously economic.

 

They seem to have been driven by a somewhat biased capitalistic philosophy which undermines morality, religion and all perspectives linked to Afro-centric philosophy, therefore, must be treated with caution.

 

The  unfortunate aspect of all-this is that this has degenerated to a state of name-calling, backbiting and all that is intended to tarnish the image of Chief Executive Officers who are managing public hospitals.

 

Take for instance the case of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital; should the unfortunate shortfall in revenue provide the rationale to run propaganda against the Chief Executive?

 

It might even interest one to know that UUTH is not alone as other federal hospitals including UPTH Port Harcourt, UBTH Benin, FMC Asaba in the South South are affected and currently on strike too.

 

Unfortunately, the gullible public is so susceptible to read in-between lines to decipher the truth whenever they see one misinformation out there.

 

But well-meaning members of the society must still be told of developments, issues and all that are being done to tackle them as they arise.

 

For example, the issues of tax and pension deductions are purely being handled centrally by federal government payment system known as IPPIS in Abuja, not by individual hospitals.

 

Other sundry issues that could be handled by individual hospital, is also determined by percentage of revenue, of patronage of individual hospital, which is experiencing a drastic shortfall, as the case of UUTH, therefore, the hospital is appealing to federal government for increased funding.

 

Agreed that strike is a way of reacting to a perceived injustice, but does one also consider the fact that if a patient in a hospital deserves treatment, justice is done if and only if the patient receives the right treatment at the right time?

 

Can one really say that if those doctors’ mother or father were to fall sick and be admitted in hospital on a serious ailment, would one wished doctors went on strike?

 

Would it also be appropriate to go at the back to insinuate damaging accusations that cannot be proven, just to smear the image of the person who has little or no control of the funding situation?

 

Where therefore lies the moral code in all-this? Where also is the place of Hippocratic Oath, African communalism and the principle of beneficence; and the sacrosanct of human life as it is negatively undermined and threatened by the strike?

 

People should realize that it is the turn of today’s management and would be the turn of another person tomorrow, therefore there is need to retrace one’s steps.

 

It is worth-saying that, in whatever one does, reason should override impulse or emotions, just to get a pound of flesh.

 

Therefore, the resident doctors are being appealed to, to return to work in the interest of humanity.

BY -Offong Umoh Offong