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Incessant Strikes, Interprofessional Frictions Threaten Healthcare in Nigeria

Incessant Strikes, Interprofessional Frictions Threaten Healthcare in Nigeria

July 1, doctors representing the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) began an indefinite strike. In addition to better conditions for its members, the association’s twenty-four-point demand included the appointment of a Surgeon General. The association is also asking the Nigerian government to recognize non-medical doctors as directors and consultants.

Dr. Kayode Obembe, president of the association, told Health News Nigeria that action was necessary to prevent anarchy — and that doctors went on strike because their “silence and gentle approach” had been disregarded.

However, four days after the strike commenced, medical consultants from the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) withdrew from the strike as members began to provide uninterrupted healthcare services nationwide.

Medical rivalries

Dr. Steven Oluwole, president of MDCAN, while announcing the suspension of the strike by members of the association, said the medical sector in Nigeria is caught in the web of unequal rivalry.

He referred to the already familiar series of incessant strikes by Nigerian doctors, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists, nurses and midwives and other categories of health professionals in the sector — and in various units, notably laboratory medicine pathology.

Dr. Adewunmi Adeoye, a consultant pathologist at Nigeria’s premier teaching hospital, the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan, southwest Nigeria said there is no way the nation’s health sector could forge ahead with the current impasse and medical rivalries. Furthermore, he said there are not going to be any mutually acceptable solutions to the problem.

“The only solution is for government to ensure international best practices prevail, and to enforce them. That is the role of government that has been glaringly absent,” he said.

According to him, allopathic medicine is not a Nigerian creation, just as professions allied to medicine were not created in Nigeria. He said the best solution would be achieved when stakeholders align with international best practices to ensure that the patient receives the best possible care, for the lowest possible costs.

“The best interest of the patient should be the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary consideration,” Dr. Adeoye told AFKInsider. “You mobilize resources and deploy them to meet the needs of the patient, knowing you’re investing in the health and prosperity and the future of the country.”

Genesis

A cross section of health professionals across various fields said the current crisis started during the tenure of Dr. Olikoye Ransome Kuti as the health minister. The pediatrician improved the working conditions of Nigerian doctors but left other professionals out.

The situation remained unchanged with subsequent administrations compelling other health professions to come together to form the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) to fight for their own rights.

Pharmacist Tolu Ogunsanya also blamed the government for the current crisis in the health sector.

“The government has failed the Nigerian people in ensuring that the health sector is reliable and dependable,” Ogunsanya told AFKInsider. “The current crisis didn’t start today, it’s more than 10-years-old. Yet, it continues to escalate without a convincing commitment on the side of the government to make things right.”

Dr. Adeoye, on the other hand, blamed the enactment of strange laws as fueling the crisis in the sector.

“Establishment of policies that create serious upheaval and confusion within the system have been surreptitiously and sometimes brazenly introduced. The healthcare workplace in government institutions are in chaos. Nigerian health care workers excel elsewhere, but the Nigerian system is in shambles,” he said.

“We have to speak the truth to ourselves, and people should work within the competences bestowed by their training and roles. Existing laws — mostly enacted within the last 15 years — have to be reviewed in accordance with international best practices and enforced to the letter. There has to be a system of rewards and punishments. That is governance.”

If the situation remains unchanged, Dr. Adeoye said health indices of individual Nigerians will continually decline. He mentioned the worsening of diseases and an increase in the cost of healthcare.