The NMA is fighting for us!

 

For instance...

A standard Ebola reference centre should have at least 4 select buildings:

1. The Ebola ward for confirmed patients.

2. A well-equipped (and comfortable) quarantine area or building for those with symptoms similar to Ebola, or those who have had close contact with a confirmed case.

3. A well-equipped residential area for healthcare personnel on an "Ebola posting". At close of work the doctors et al treating Ebola patients do not go home to further endanger their families; they must reside in the on-site exclusive residential area.

4. A logistics centre where rapid diagnostic and other routine tests for suspects and cases are carried out and the results analysed and correlated.

 

This Ebola posting should not exceed three to four weeks per set of healthcare personnel to limit the chances of them getting sloppy. And following this posting they are screened and returned to the general circulation (only) if negative. Have it any other way and one may as well change the hospital to a (warm) morgue and the healthcare workers to mortuary attendants. So this business of various health ministries naming any hospitals with a gate as Ebola centres is a cruel joke at best, and an invitation to a suicide mission and open epidemic at worst.

 

And this is why the NMA will not be part of such: To protect the general population, to protect their own families, to protect themselves. No one wants to die. No one, the Doctor inclusive. SEE, Ebola and the GORGONS; link below.

 

Yet...

So far, the best the average Nigerian sees fit to do is applaud the opposition and rally round the government as they put us Doctors to the guillotine and decimate us. The average Nigerian would rather wait till Health had become like Education with massive failures, or Justice with unbelievable injustice, or Transportation with alarming incompetence! The average Nigerian would rather the Doctor were dead and buried, and the para-Doctor came to treat (and be treated to) his pocket, and not his health.

 

Well, Nigeria will get all that and more; if we continue the way we are headed. A people deserve the leadership it gets, for, as was observed centuries ago, "when Allah wants to deal kindly with a nation, he entrusts its reins in the hands of wise men and gives wealth to its generous people; and when he wants to deal with a nation harshly, he entrusts its control in the hands of foolish people, and gives wealth to its miserly men." (Abu Daud) And in the latter case, we must be, as is said in local parlance, in soup. For as regards the stupidity of such foolish leadership, even Albert Einstein, the physicist, observed that it can know no bounds: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. But I'm not very sure about the universe."

 

But there is yet time for a rethink. For everyone that was delivered by a Doctor, saved by his skills, or/and revived by his tenacity to join hands with him and protest the illegality of the loss of his status and his job, to stand by him and stare down our nonexistence of a government, to rally round him as he defies our nonentities in Abuja. There is yet time to put the past behind us and forge ahead, together, into a planned, pleasant and profitably secure future. There is yet time to make our home, our own, just as good as, and I dare say better than, those "other climes".

 

Yes, there is yet time; because the next time, e fit be you o.

 

By Ayokunle Ayk Fowosire,

Sagamu.

Whatsapp: +2348068619636.

 

"Medusa: In Greek mythology, a mortal woman who was transformed into a Gorgon, a dragon-like creature with snakes for hair. According to myth, Medusa was once a lovely maiden, but when she dared compete with Athena—either by taking too much pride in her hair or by having a love affair with the god Poseidon—the vengeful goddess turned Medusa into a monster. Medusa’s head was then so hideous that anyone who looked at it was turned to stone. "Medusa was eventually slain by Perseus, who cut off her head with the assistance of Athena and Hermes. Because Perseus dared not look at Medusa, Athena guided his hand while he viewed the reflection of Medusa’s head in his shield. The severed head was given to Athena, who is sometimes depicted with the head of Medusa on her shield." (Microsoft ENCARTA: Medusa)

 

But That Was Not The End...

Suspending medical residency in Nigeria is not only a desperate move, it is a woeful act whose implications on specialist care as well as undergraduate studies are unquantifiable, to say the least. But lest I become Nostra, suffice it to say that this is the beginning of our end, and not the end of our beginning, as the fools believe, if we fold our arms or clap our hands in the face of such infinite stupidity as this. For this is indeed the tremor that heralds the quake that defines our end, the end of our sovereignty, the end of our existence. 

 

As for those of you encroaching on the Doctor's jurisdiction, the time has come to close shop. We have found your hypocrisy where you kept it at the peak of the Everest. You learn from us, gain from us, cheat us, and cheat on us; yet you mock us when we are done helping you, incite the people against us, and connive to usurp us. That one must not bite the finger that feeds him, however helpless it may seem, is a lesson you must not have learnt before now. There's a reason you don't stir the hornet's nest.

 

As for Doctors, even if we remain helpless, marginalised and unloved, we shall nevertheless rise again to claim that which is rightfully ours, eventually. And in this case, Nigeria can rot for all we care. After all, the lad who cried wolf deserved to be with him; and the gingerbread made such a delicious meal.