On the Doctors' Strike: When the Tail Wags the Dog

There has emerged in Nigeria a new kind of terrorism - the kind that dresses its mischief up as Freedom of Expression. This is the brand of terrorism that I see unleashed on Facebook and in some sections of the media. The terrorists are the ill-informed, the misinformed, the dis-informed, and those responsible for all the misinformation and disinformation. The victims of this terror attack are the patients whose unfortunate plight the terrorists are now using to prosecute their campaign of calumny against Nigerian doctors. 

Doctors working in Nigerian government hospitals recently proceeded on a strike action to press home their demands for a better (and fairer) working environment, one that recognizes the relative contributions of the doctor to the system vis-à-vis the so-called "allied health professionals"; one that recognizes the years of arduous training that goes into the production of a single medical doctor worth the name; one that recognizes the level of risk to which every doctor exposes himself in order to discharge the responsibilities imposed on him by society and by his Oath. But this strike was not the first step, as some would like the public to believe. The Federal Government had been approached and several meetings had been held; several promises were made and broken. But doctors knew the costs of a strike, any strike, to their image and their integrity. So the broken promises were forgiven; new MOUs were signed and again reneged upon.

The journalists who cry foul now were all quiet. Every one of them. They instead wrote beautiful stories about a certain First Lady whose use and abuse of a certain global language reminds one of the bushisms of President George Bush II. They did not see it fit to call on the government to renounce its culture of making promises and then unashamedly breaking them. They unleashed uncommon adjectives in describing the thievery of our politicians who smiled home as their bank accounts swelled. They toured hospitals in India and wrote about them in our dailies. But the agitations of the doctors were not newsworthy. They made no tail-lines, never mind headlines. At that time, the doctors were not small gods. No. They were just wallpaper whose complaints could easily be ignored.

Then, the so-called "Allied Health Professionals" deceived the government into agreeing to an arrangement that effectively allows virtually anyone in the hospital to tamper with patients' prescriptions without the prior knowledge of the doctor, while at the same time holding the doctor liable for anything that happens to the patient as a result of that tampering. In other words, some nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, and medical records staff secured for themselves the fiat of the government to alter the treatment plans of patients without the notice of the doctor; at the same time, the doctor's responsibility for any untoward event that happens to the patient is upheld. Aside from the obvious illogicality of the move, could anyone have come up with any better prescription for chaos and terror than the "Allied Health Professionals" have done?

The Nigerian Medical Association and all Nigerian doctors nationwide are in solidarity with their patients and with all and sundry. This strike has been called to defend the patient from the mediocrity that JOHESU seeks to impose on the Health Sector. This strike has been called because to do otherwise is tantamount to a repudiation of our Oath.

The patient comes to the hospital and entrusts his life to the hands of the doctor. The doctor treats that life with all the dignity it deserves - that is what he spent six years plus in a Nigerian university getting trained to do. In the course of protecting that life, he uses the tools at his disposal, and these tools include nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technologists, radiographers, etc. It is not compulsory that he uses each and every one of those tools in attending to each patient. He uses the tools available to him on a need-to-use basis. His training includes sharpening his discretion to know when to use what. A situation where the tools decide that they are as good as their operator is analogous to a situation wherein the tail wags the dog.

Therefore, in order to ensure that JOHESU does not turn our hospitals into abattoirs, Nigerians worldwide should task the Nigerian government to do the needful. The patient needs the doctor. The doctor needs the nurse. The doctor may sometimes need the others. That is how it is. Simple. Very, very simple.