The Nigerian Society of Physiotherapy (NSP) has appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the issue of collective bargaining, fair play and equity in the health care delivery system for physiotherapists and other professionals is given top priority.

President of NSP, Mr. Taiwo Oyewumi, who made the call recently while addressing the media, said that there shouldn’t be a wide gap between the NSP and the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) professionals in the health care delivery system of the country.

 

Oyewumi said that physiotherapists play very significant roles in health care delivery and Nigeria should not be an exception. “But physiotherapists have not been given their right dues in the health sector either overtly or covertly; we need fair play as a professional body and as one of the major stakeholders in the Nigerian health sector,” he said.

 

Explaining further, he remarked that the NSP comprises practitioners of physical therapy. Physiotherapists, like their counterparts in medicine, he added, are health care practitioners who have undergone university training in the medical schools in Nigeria and in the diaspora with the award of Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree and currently, doctor of physiotherapy degree awaiting approval by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

 

“Some of the Nigerian physiotherapy doctors that trained abroad were awarded Doctor of Physiotherapy (DPT) degree. Currently in the USA, for example, 217 out of the 218 schools offering physical therapy programme are awarded DPT,” he said.

Oyewumi reiterated that physiotherapists have the capacity to make physical diagnosis and institute appropriate intervention protocols. He added: “This is not to challenge the NMA but we are saying that we need collective bargaining. The health sector is a team and we must work together. All we want is for the Nigerian people to have the best because they deserve the best.

 

“It is unimaginable that a set of professionals would come out to the public to oppose the promotion of another set of professionals to the post of a director, the peak of their careers in their own field of studies after spending five years in the university. Therefore, we call for speedy action on the promotion of eligible members to this and other ranks without further delay.” The NSP also condemned the industrial action of the NMA currently ongoing saying that the strike is unjustifiable, especially at this period of national grief while seeking for harmony in the Nigerian health industry.

 

He explained further: “We noted that the NMA is not a registered trade union; hence, it does not have the legitimacy to negotiate on industrial issues nor embark on industrial action. We commend the president’s effort in setting up the Presidential Expert Committee on Industrial Harmony in the Health Sector.”

 

However, the president said the challenge the NSP is facing at the moment would not necessitate any industrial action as they have always engaged in dialogue adding: “NSP is not going on strike and has no intention of such, the president is the listening type.”

Since the NSP craves to embrace international best practices, its members have piled a list of 24-prayer point (requests) to the federal government, including: creation of directorate of medical rehabilitation in the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), foundation of National policy on Physiotherapy and Medical rehabilitation, national action plan on employment of physiotherapists (well over fifty per cent of Nigerian trained physiotherapists have migrated abroad), immediate takeover of the National Post-graduate Physiotherapy College of Nigeria (NPPCN) as approved by the Medical Rehabilitation Therapists Registration Board of Nigeria (MRTBN) by the FMOH and the inclusion of NSP president as a member of the MRTB Board among others. By Rebecca Ejifoma