Posted on: Sat 08-04-2017

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is a state of complete physical mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Therefore, good health and not money, properties or political power is the premium of all possessions any person can have. Those who maintain and work to restore health when it goes wrong deserve appreciation, recognition and celebration for their sacrifices.

 

The health workers, which comprises doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, medical laboratories scientists, nutritionists, community extension workers and other allied hospital staff globally deny themselves to cater for the health needs of their clients. The World Health Workers Week (WHWW) is an opportunity to mobilize our communities, partners, policy-makers and governments in support of health workers. It is a week to rally the health workforce to a point of unison for celebration and acknowledgement as a team, eventhough there are separate days annually to appreciate these professionals(doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc.) in the healthcare business.

The WHWW is an avenue to inform the society the hazards these professionals are exposed to daily, poor remunerations,poor conditions at which they work and their enormous shortage all over the world with its attending negative effects on global health. It has been estimated by the WHO that 7.2million are in shortage in 2013 with more than 70% of this shortage in low and medium income countries and the poorest of the poor regions of the world. It was also projected that by 2035 this would have jumped to 12.9million. A graphic representation of this anomaly is the doctor-populatiion ratios of 32/10,000 in Europe while in some parts of Africa, it is 0.5/10,000, that is there is one doctor to a 20,000 population. As the western world is scared of losing 40% of her nurses by the next ten years to other occupations due to relatively low pay and over-demanding work schedule, Africa could imagine the impending alarming shortage of these health workers as they emigrate to these developed world in their thousands yearly in the next decade.

 

Globally, the numerouno bane of universal health coverage is inadequate skilled health workers; fueled by lopsided distribution and shortage of supply with propagating factors including poor remunerations, stressful workload, absent modern equipment for practice and poor incentives. Like many African countries, the reality on ground in Nigeria is far from the acceptable. Their numbers and geographical distribution negate health equity and breed poor health indices across the regions of the country. The reason why this situation may not change for better is the inhumane treatment and uninviting condition of work that is drifting the health workers outside the shore of the country in pursuance of greener pasture. A peep into the world of the federal teaching hospitals in Nigeria is like opening a can of worms. There are some hospitals at present where house officers are not up to fifteen in number whereas each has capacity for more than a hundred and fifty while thousands of fresh medical graduates are still looking for house job slot almost a year after graduation. These interns are perpetually on call duties and many a times without call food and call rooms for their comfort. For sure, such young doctors in these centres will no learn the rope of the profession because their tutelage period has been turned to slavery and servitude. There is a federal teaching hospital in the south west Nigeria where there are no single resident doctors in many of its departments for months. Definitely, training, research and service delivery which is the pivot of these centres will be at its lowest ebb. Poor remuneration tops the reasons why health workers embark on industrial actions all over the world and Nigeria inclusive. There are some federal tertiary health facilities in Nigeria wherethere is discrepancy in salaries of health workers on the same cadre in the same hospital. All these and many more always cause industrial disharmony.

 

The above mentioned, are due tohigh-handedness of most Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of these hospitals which are made possible by poor supervisory functions and sometimes connivance with the top officials of the federal ministry of health. The over-arching cause of these is the lack of visible direction and feasible directives of the government of the day. Evidences includes non-appointment of substantive CMDs for about twenty out of the fifty two federal tertiary hospitals which is running into two years now in some cases as against the Acts that created these institutions. In the same vein, the Governing Boards of all the tertiary health institutions have not been constituted two years after they were dissolved and this has, in no small measure affected effectiveness, accountability and service delivery of these hospital.

 

The fifth World Health Week (April 2^nd – 8^th) is a reminder to health policy-makers to honour heroic deeds of health workers and to immortalize some that literarily sacrificed their life on duty. Dr Stella Adadevoh readily comes to mind as a deserved beneficiary of such gesture. She stood in the gap for Nigeria to prevent severe outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease by physically restraining Mr Patrick Sawyer, the index case from Liberia. She contracted the virus and later died of the disease. Placing premium on the Nigerian health workers through dignified and humane work environment, continuous training and retraining, state-of-the-art facilities to work with and engendering workplace harmony is the first step towards ensuring universal health coverage for the population.

Happy World Health Workers Week 2017.

Dele Atiba

08063264061

[email protected]

For: STELLA ADADEVOH SUPPORT GROUP – SASG

facebook page: Stella Adadevoh Support Group - SASG

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