FOR THE EARS THAT LISTEN TO UNDERSTAND. Resident doctors are the engine house of any teaching hospital and medical centre. They keep the system working while under the guidance and supervision of consultants. Some quarters may be happy with the ill-informed decision of the government to suspend indefinitely residency program and sacking of all resident doctors. But believe you me we will all soon realize the grievous mistake of this ill-informed decision of perhaps very few individuals in government. Very soon it wouldnt be just the other members of the hospital community that will be feeling the impact of the absence of resident doctors but the rest of the society, including those that dont have direct affiliation to the hospital. I wrote this with all sense of responsibility. I have been feeling the impact of the absence of my dear radiology resident doctors since May of this year. I know how the absence of resident doctors has negatively impacted on my day-to-day activities. It has as well done same to the other departments and units of the hospital where I work. The government, instead of meeting up to its expected responsibility in the health sector, opted for the dictatorial option of sacking all resident doctors and indefinitely suspending the residency training. The questions now are will this bossy action of the government bring back sanity into the system? Who will be the doctors that will now apply for the locum appointments advertised by the government? Will the statutory functions of the teaching hospitals as centers for teaching, research, and health service delivery still be complete without the residency program being part and parcel of the training aspect of the teaching hospitals? How are specialist doctors/consultants going to be produced, henceforth? What will be the fate of the two postgraduate medical colleges, especially the national postgraduate medical college of Nigeria? Indirectly, what will be the fate of undergraduate medicine/dentistry in the clinical site of the universities affiliated to those teaching hospitals? Will the other team members of the health institutions function without the doctors, especially the resident doctors? How will Nigeria be seen by the outside world in terms of the quality of specialist doctors? I believe these are questions/issues the government didnt consider before deciding to issue those unhealthy decisions on residency program and resident doctors. A sane government is known by the way it handles issues and policies of national interest. Suspending residency program will never be the solution to the illness of the health sector in Nigeria but rather the sincerity and good will on the the part of the government on policies that concern health care delivery. The government must as a matter of urgency and responsibility be ready to be involved in the provision of accessible and affordable health care to its citizens. The government must also be responsible for training of health care personnel. If it cannot fully do that it must make available conducive and enabling environment for private individuals and organizations to provide such services. In doing that it must also be responsible for regulating the activities of such private providers of health care and training. The government cannot shy away from its responsibilities by suspending or ignoring a segment of its people. When your nails are too long and dirty you dont cut off your fingers but rather opt for a manicure/pedicure. What the government should do at any given time and condition is for it to holistically look at the problems of its people with sincerity and caring eyes in order to solve them. It should not listen to sycophantic voices whose aim is to bring down the system by all means necessary while filling their insatiable guts with finances/budgets meant for correcting the system. Nigeria has the best brains in all faculties of human endeavors and it should try all its best to maintain these brains within the shores of the country. The policies of the government should be motivating enough to keep these valuable brains around rather than scaring them out of the country. The government should be thinking of adding value to what is already on ground. We are already loosing to other nations our people and image. We cannot afford to continue like that. The government should only listen to the voices of reason before its too late.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 20:55:44 +0000
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