The attention of the Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria (AHAPN) has been drawn to a recent news broadcast credited to the Honourable Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole to the effect that the Federal Government has concluded plans to exclusively place medical graduates centrally for the compulsory one year housemanship programme, thereby effectively excluding other graduates from related health disciplines like pharmacy, medical laboratory sciences and others. 

 

Our initial response is one of utter disappointment, anger and a feeling of betrayal, more so coming at a time when the honorable Minister has been canvassing for peace and harmony in the nation's healthcare sector. We are not only disappointed at the action of the honourable Minister, but are actually at a loss as to what the minister's real intentions are. Is he truly the Minister for all players in the healthcare sector or is he a Minister for the affairs of Medical Doctors only?

 

We are aware of recent calls by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) asking for the resignation of Professor Adewole as Minister of Health in Nigeria, over shoddy handling of Nigeria's healthcare sector. This recent action of the Minister in singling out medical graduates out of the lot is lending credence to the stand of NARD, and will only worsen and polarize the healthcare sector further.

 

Coming at a time when both the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) have been holding series of parleys on how to move the healthcare sector in Nigeria forward, we want to state without equivocation that this latest decision of the minister has just drawn the healthcare sector in Nigeria backward by at least ten years. The Minister is simply telling pharmacy graduates, medical laboratory scientists and all others that they are not important, not recognized, not reckoned with in the scheme of things in the sector. He is indirectly saying that only medical graduates matter to him and the federal government, which is not much different from the stand of the NMA until recently. Nowhere else in the world does this kind of segregation and wanton display of bias on the part of a government against its citizens take place. 

 

Interestingly and ironically, we are aware that a proposal was submitted to the Federal Ministry of Health, on how the Federal Government can overcome the perennial problem of placement of pharmacy graduates and other interns, by placing them centrally, through the regulatory bodies, in our case, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), only for the honourable Minister to turn around and use the said document exclusively to the advantage of medical graduates and exclusion of all others.

 

Pharmacists have always been law abiding citizens, but we make bold to assert that the Honourable Minister of Health has pushed us to the limit by his action; hence we are forced to react accordingly. 

 

At an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of AHAPN, the Council decided as follows:

 

NEC condemned the action of the Honourable Minister in singling out medical graduates only for central placement, while leaving graduates of other health disciplines to fend for themselves, even when ultimately, all of them are going to end up attending to the same patients in the nation's hospitals.

 

NEC is of the conviction that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and as such, the federal government should put machinery in motion to coordinate internship positions for all health inclined graduates centrally like they have just done for medical graduates. 

 

NEC calls on the Honourable Minister of Health to realize that he is supposed to be a father to all players in the healthcare sector and not only for medical doctors, in line with international best practice.

 

NEC commends the federal government for efforts they have made so far to ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians occasioned by the economic recession, and is hereby urging the government to urgently and dispassionately look into the issues raised in this petition, if for nothing, for continued peace and tranquility in the nation's health sector.

 

Conclusion 

We want to end this Release by stating that the Nigerian healthcare sector is already bedeviled with enough strife, professional disharmony, mutual suspicion and discord. Nothing must be done to break the fragile peace in the sector or throw the sector into another round of endless strikes with dire and unpleasant consequences for Nigerian patients.

 

We believe it is not late for the government to remedy the situation and we demand that this privilege should be enjoyed by intern Pharmacists as well as other pupil professionals in the health industry.

 

Pharm. Martins Oyewole                                     

National Chairman AHAPN                                    

Pharm. Jelili Kilani,

National Secretary