DADDY VERSUS HOUSEHOLD FIGHT 

 

Having kept quiet in the eye of this brouhaha between the doctors and non-doctors in the federation, I now think it is time to break my silence. If you ask me, I think we need to gather; we need to sit up and discuss as family but someone has to come down from the echelon he has abrogated to himself. 

 

We cannot dispute this known fact; all profession in the health sector has a father (the Doctor) but a father who has refused the growth of his wife and children can best be described as wicked or something worse. It is very disheartening that this acrimony has eaten into the fabrics of the health sector that the fight has turned personal. I really wonder what the working relationship will come down to at the end of this whole saga. 

 

A friend once told me that it is just the God in him that is helping him suppress the hatred he has for doctors; what of those who dont have the same in them? 

 

I happened to have taken a course in health management once and if there was one thing I learnt it was that for optimal function of group of staff in an organization there must be harmonious environment for work. That mentality is being lost and lost very fast and this is being given a boost by some kind of indoctrination of the younger generation into what is seemingly not productive and beneficial in the practice of the profession that attends to a running engine. 

 

As first year students in the college of medicine and a non-doctor student, we had a fraternal relationship with all and sundry; the medical students, the scientist student and even the radiography student. On crossing over to Enugu after our first year, we got our first dose of reality; non-medical students could not have hostel accommodation until the medical had been accommodated; somehow because of our free spiritedness as the crop of generation, we got over it and continued with our fraternal relationship. 

 

Though as youngsters, the exam test conflict did not affect our relationship, but we all got another blow; the terrible blow that changed our views forever. 

 

One of us aspired to govern our hostel, we needed a change, we wanted power to move to our generation, we met severally; I enjoyed that group full of intellect that brought out time, money and good working strategies that made us sweep the electorates like tornadoes. Even the Lords at that time were troubled by our historic move but from the blues came the virus which is still in our polity today; 

...they are not one of us; 

...they are non-medical students. 

 

The generation that would have led the change that perhaps would have started the harmonious revolution in the health sector crumbled before our very eyes. And the gap grew; it was never the same again and perhaps will never be. We all have left school, all virtually eking out a living in different health institutions. The old monster still lives within us and have even grown worse such that it affects the general populace. At school we had no reason to fight but now we have every reason to go for each others jugular. 

 

As physiotherapy students, we sat in virtually same class taking lectures in the basic medical sciences, we wrote same exams but theirs were tagged test before the main exam (2nd MBBS),that I call class, that is where the superiority syndrome was established; I really do not blame anybody, I blame our curriculum. 

 

We understand the Doctor being the fulcrum in the lever system but can the fulcrum alone lift the load? I can say categorically that it is high time the Doctor assume the fatherly role and call everybody together to sit and discuss; convince your household why the consultant position should be sacrosanct to Doctors, convince your household why every non doctor is a technician; be the father you are by proving your case with points not arrogance. 

 

You can also convince the audience to this our drama why the health sector has to have only doctors just like the lawyers you are always quick to compare with the health system. I think we will be glad to go into extinction but make sure you convince the National Universities Commission on why all other courses that is not medicine should be abolished in order to solve this problem once and for all. 

 

If Daddy is angered that the he is subjected to vigorous training, perhaps daddy should advocate for an improved vigorosity on the training of other members of the household especially your children who have every right to grow into maturity; if daddy feels that the children are incompetent to handle some given functions like a friend once said about the dudes in the lab, why not make use of the vantage position if you love the practice to push for improved curriculum for them and possible re-training. 

 

In a complete lever system, the fulcrum cannot just do the work alone; in a football field, the goal keeper is the most vantage of the players to oversee what is happening in the field of play but the position of captains of the football team are not sacrosanct to them so why should the position of the Head of the hospital be reserved for the Doctor based on his vantage position? 

 

Is the headship of the mining companies sacrosanct to the geologist or the miners? 

Is the headship of the oil companies sacrosanct to the petroleum engineers? 

Convince us that the headship of the media houses is sacrosanct to the graduates of journalism. 

Of course in your view, the headship of the banks should be for the banking and finance graduates alone. 

 

I understand your anger on the reason why even the cleaners should join in the struggle, but I tell you one thing daddy, you have so much maltreated the household with a great impunity that everybody has united against you even the servants. 

 

And to you dear reader who will look for loopholes in the write up, dont be in such a hurry to tell me that the head of the family is akways the father, I know, but remember the family is just a unit cell of the society. A good number of governors have their fathers still alive and a good number of presidents in the world are mothers who still have living husband their fathers are always the heads of their families, so do not get the post twisted.

 

By Emelie Moris