SACRILEGIOUS SAINT Posted: July 24, 2014 in Friends speak 0 My intention for writing this article is certainly not to further the war of words between doctors and non doctors in the health sector but to further inform the public about a few things they may not be aware of (I, however believe this unhealthy rivalry is uncalled for and probably non existent or at least minimal in developed economies of the world, Nigeria is indeed a peculiar nation though largely in the realm of negativism) The importance of all members of the health sector cannot be over emphasized in truth but we must be quickly reminded that we all play different roles with the aim of achieving a single goal- the care of the patient or client. This said, who is a doctor? A doctor is one the society admires, parents envy and patients look up-to. The one that can takes care of their body and soul and at times spirit! The relationship is so personal that there are no hold backs, the patient bares his body and often his soul out to his doctor. The question is who does the doctor bare his own soul to? The doctor may be the first you see while ill and the last just before death! He is the one who is pained by the loss of a dear life and yet may not be able to do anything about it. The one who improvises as much as he can to get the job done, often enduring difficulties and occasional lack of cooperation from other health staff who may not feel the pain and moral burden the doctor feels. Yet the society expects him to work his ‘magic’ on every patient. A doctor is one who has a noble profession yet he or she is payed like a commoner! The one who is quickly reminded of the Hippocratic oath at the slightest provocation. This oath has for long served as the portal of progressive emotional blackmail. But again I ask, young woman, will you marry me because I have sworn a million Hippocratic oath or at least let me pay your dowry with thousands of this sacred oath? In fact, all my married colleagues who are invariably bread winners, should take billions of this oath to their families with which they can make purchases in the market that commoners, politicians and other elites also patronize. Oh! Mr. bank manager, please post a hundred thousand to my aging parents because I have sworn the oath! Hippocratic oath does not pay the bills. A doctor should at least be comfortable to perform optimally at his job. It will be perfect if Government will let us play out these fantasies since the oath is now widely believed to be a blank check that can be cashed or used everywhere in all currencies! Oh please! Pardon my bitter sarcasm. Doctors are often broke and even neck deep in debt, for your information. A Doctor is one of the many health staffs who get paid a ‘whooping’ five thousand naira to be exposed to patients with highly infectious diseases while a lecturer gets a ‘meager’ thirty thousand naira as Hazard allowance! A good friend of mine had aptly tagged Nigeria a country of normal anomalies! How do you tell your spouse and family that you ‘brought’ HIV, hepatitis or tuberculosis home knowing fully well that they are occupational hazards for which you had five thousand naira insurance? It certainly makes no sense. A Doctor is one society considers happy and satisfied. How wrongly so! It has been found that the suicide rate amongst physicians is 28-40 per 100,000 as opposed to 12.3 per 100,000 in the general population. So physicians are twice as likely to kill themselves compared to the general public. They are also the second highest group of professionals with suicidal ideation (medscape). The question is WHY? When a Doctor has to grabble with work place animosity, professional rivalry and lack of job satisfaction, not to mention that he advices clients to eat and sleep well while he almost always skip meals, get sleep deprived and bears great stress. We must see this as a calling and service to humanity Most Doctors are burnt out, overworked- physically and mentally,- spending little or no time with family and loved ones,sparsely enough for themselves. They conceal so much pain and exude plenty of enthusiasm with very little joy for self. You may never understand until you see a mother’s only child die before you because of power failure, government bureaucracy or other unfriendly condition of work; pain so deep, that even your spirit sobs. At times, I feel it in my marrow. A Doctor is the one who nobody care about. Have you ever asked your doctor how he is doing? Or call him up to exchange pleasantries? But you want to get prompt care as soon as you require it. He is the one whose services everybody likes but only a few genuinely care about his pains, health, whether or not he is fatigued. A Doctor is the one everybody readily imitates in the health sector as long as they work within the walls of a hospital. There has to be reasons why everybody wants to pose as a doctor whereas no doctor wants to be seen as a nurse, pharmacist or laboratory scientist. There is no need for egocentrism. We all went to school and got trained as who we are now, lobbied for jobs as such yet will not function in line with our job description after a while all because we have acquired the herd immunity through our various unions. Relativity is fair. People should earn according to the rigors of there jobs, years of training, risks as well as amount of responsibility which by the way exposes them to even litigations from the people they care for. A Doctor is the one who has had a rigorous panoramic training yet the headship of the tertiary healthcare is being debated. This is a country of normal anomalies indeed. Even the general hospital in my small local government is headed by the one and only doctor there yet the headship of tertiary institutions where the post graduate doctor is being trained is not sacrosanct for the most vastly trained professional in the same sector. Please note, that the job is both technical and administrative. I was speaking to a doctor who is also a soldier a fortnight ago. I asked if he could ever be the Chief of Army Staff? NEVER was his reply and that he dares not think about it because even amongst regular soldiers only the combatant could become COAS. How do you send men to war if you have never been on the battle field? (I am yet to verify his submission by the way). He would probably be treated as a soldier guilty of mutiny if he voices such aspiration, I suppose. Soon we will ask officers of the Civil Defense to come train the Nigerian Army, a member of the house of reps will soon become senate president too. A professor of mine in med school has a popular mantra- even in hell there is order, you don’t seat on the devils seat. Gbam! Why should MLSCN regulate the importation of all IVDs (Invitro Diagnostics)? A job that is statutory for SON and NAFDAC. So much for duplicity of functions and further depletion of available resources. The rivalry between Pathologist and scientists is probably at a crescendo right now condescending to a dangerous level of physical assault. Though a pathologist in training, I admit that I have met several scientists with beautiful souls. Our jobs may have made monsters of some of us (doctors and scientists). The leeway must be defined with insistence on entrenchment of best global standards so everybody will know there place indeed. Enough is enough! Why can’t we just work harmoniously without irrational emotions and make the patient the centre of our practice indeed? WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? The government must not play politics with health and spare no efforts to restore sanctity, no matter whose horse is gored as Rtd. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo would often say. Government must put an end to the ‘divide and rule’ approach. Sowing this seed of discord will only worsen the state of an already sour soup! All labourers are worthy of their wages, doctors or non doctors. For how long will we cope with the dearth of our health professionals to saner societies by way of brain drain, should we continue to fuel this ‘hegira’? And please, a hazard allowance of five thousand naira is not just ridiculously low for all health workers, it is insulting! If dialogue will help the inter professional rivalry, let it start now. If total or partial privatization will salvage the situation, so be it. An attentive consideration of all demands of the various bodies should be reconciled by the FMOH and relevant government agencies viz a viz. the institution of international or global best practices. All health care staff must seat up including the doctors and avoid suppression of younger colleagues (auto immunity) If we do not develop our country, who will? Nelson Mandela sought treatment in South Africa until his death, my bet is he did all he could for the health sector. We need not mention how many, if not all Nigerian elites who are/were frequent medical tourists to foreign lands some up to the point of death. What happens to the ordinary Nigerian who cannot afford the bills of a private hospital let alone of going abroad? I must also commend my colleagues in Kaduna state who reported to the hospitals to take care of the victims of the twin blasts, an affirmation of the earlier stated comment of NMA/ARD that the strike was not against Nigerians but against unfriendly and largely unsustainable stance of the Nigerian government. I will retire my pen, though temporarily and let my heart continue to drip with pains from the rot of my fatherland reminding all that wish to hear that it’s our task to build a virile nation by our actions and inactions for posterity to judge us fairly. I leave you with the words of the Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke- All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men do nothing! God bless Nigeria. -ADO, Theophilus (mbbs) is a staff of the department of Heamatology and Blood Tr
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 23:10:28 +0000
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