Pharmacists have urged government to desist from dialoguing with Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), noting that both groups are not trade unions, but professional bodies which lack the legal capacity to engage in trade disputes.

They have therefore enjoined the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), the umbrella body for workers in the health industry and its labour partners to apply legal action in obtaining redress, if government does not desist from dialoguing with any unlawful group in trade disputes henceforth.

Giving the admonition was Olumide Akintayo, National President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) who blamed government for treating NMA and NARD strike threats and actions with levity thereby protracting the crisis and disharmony in the industry.

Akintayo, in a letter signed by him on Tuesday, said: “The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria puts on record once again that it is government at all levels that creates undisguised incentives to the NMA and its allies to continue to serve strike notices. It is common knowledge the NMA, NARD and similar platforms are professional groups and therefore cannot legitimately assume the responsibilities of Trade Unions which engage government in labour disputes.

He blamed government for being dispassionate towards demands from NMA and NARD, which he termed illegitimate. The PSN boss said: “Rather than government tackling this aberration frontally once and for all, it continues to legitimise the illegality of these medical groups through unlawful dialogues and negotiations. This has strengthened successive leaderships of these groups to exploit the gaffes in the system to infringe on the rights of lawful stakeholders in Nigeria.

“We also call on JOHESU and its labour allies to immediately proceed to the appropriate arbitration courts to seek judicial redress if government proceeds to dialogue with any unlawful group in trade disputes from now on in the health sector,” the pharmacist said.

PSN also told government to ignore the threats of the NMA and advise it to pursue any legitimate demand in line with due process.

Pharmacists further accused NMA for fomenting crisis and disharmony in the countries in healthcare system following its monopoly of all resources and privileges in the sector.

“The fundamental distortion in healthcare in Nigeria revolves around the hegemonic inclination of the NMA and its acolytes for a grab-grab syndrome of all resources and privileges in the Health Sector,” he said.

Akintayo condemned doctors’ refusal to approve qualified health workers from other professions.

“The resistance of doctors to approval of consultancy status for qualified members of the health team is laced with abysmal ignorance. It is baffling that people who mouth international best practices stand on hypocritical platitudes that expanding the consultancy frontier can create chaos in hospitals. The logical question to ask is why does it not create chaos in other climes?

Pharmacists have also advised NMA to embrace rational logic to champion a cause that promotes the maintenance of ethical and professional latitudes in the health sector as it affects the various consultants in different callings.

According to Akintayo, the era in which only doctors controlled all management and decision- making positions in the industry has gone.

Illustrating this he said: “NMA must realise that the order has changed albeit progressively forever just like yesterday’s traditional housewives are CEOs of multinational firms in the global arena. The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria on its part will facilitate responsible and professionally driven consultancy outputs that place premium on skills and competence on all health professionals in an orderly and responsible setting.”

PSN President also enjoined government to abide by the Memorandum of Understanding and agreements at its recent parley of June 5, which the NMA is apparently reacting to.

His words: “We insist that government has only restored relativity in the CONHESS and CONMESS scale in perfect tandem with the 2009 collective bargaining agreements by adjusting equivalent scales on the CONHESS scale like it was done with the CONMESS scale on January 2, this year. Any insinuation that suggests a violation in the light of this development is a misnomer which we shall resist and refuse to condone.”

“It should be a matter of embarrassment to seasoned bureaucrats in Nigeria that it is only in the health sector that you find a professional body agitating for the welfare and upliftment of its own members, but also goes ahead to peg or dictate what its contemporaries in other professions which it chooses to denigrate and insult through references such as allied health workers or para-medicals can earn,” he added.

Akintayo also noted that the unending agitation for the appointment of a Surgeon General by the NMA is one that should attract lovers of our democracy.

According to him, pharmacist are yet to be convinced about the enabling law which supports NMA’s demand for a Surgeon General in the country and consequently urged government to ignore their request .

“The unending agitation for the appointment of a Surgeon General by the NMA is one that should attract lovers of our democracy. Unfortunately the NMA cabal finds it difficult to reckon with the golden tenets of a democratic order having gotten used to the era of military dictatorships when their godfathers utilised their good relationship with erstwhile military leaders to impose draconian decrees that have remained the militating bane for industrial harmony in the volatile health sector. The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria continues to wonder under what enabling law the NMA expects government to appoint a Surgeon General in our nation,” he said.

He also warned: “We advise the Federal Government not to dabble into this potentially divisive and explosive concept which serves no good, but will only generate more entropy even at a time government needs to trim bureaucratic excesses associated with funding its various structures. The Surgeon General initiative failed even at the national conference where NMA apologists smuggled it into the proceedings of the 2005 national conference. It failed at the 6th National Assembly when the idea was toyed with in the Senate, it failed at the Gusau Panel on Harmony in the health sector. For as long as the agenda remains unholy because it is selfish and truncates justice and fairness to all concerned, it will continue to fail.

“If the NMA believes it can fly, we shall dare it to sponsor such a bill at the National Assembly, because rather than continue to harass government, the NMA and its members can legally push this agenda at the National Assembly itself,” the PSN boss stated.