The doctors are once again on strike. Their demands as always are on their working condition, recognition for their sacrifices and hard work. A brief rundown of the stages of a doctors training will help bring out the essence of this write up. It is a known fact that in Nigeria, at least, the smartest or the most intelligent in secondary school are the ones that end up studying medicine. This is typified by the high mark that an applicant of medicine is expected to attain in JAMB before they are granted admission to study medicine in most of our universities. Once they get into medical school, they are required to spend up at least six years in medical school (that are not semester based). Not semester based means if there is a strike action by ASUU as is often obtained and other faculties decide to rush their programmes to meet up, medical school cannot do this because their programmes are usually structured in such a way that things in the curriculum must be completed. This singular statement means that a normal doctors academic session is usually more than six years. After graduation, the doctor proceeds on his or her internship for a period of at least one year. Then he goes for NYSC, where they are mostly posted to rural health facilities. For some rural areas, their interventions or actions are mostly the only health service provision experienced by the local population. After this the doctor comes back to fight for a limited residency slot in a training institution usually in teaching hospitals and other specialised hospitals for at least a limited period of five years. This specialist training once completed successfully grants you a specialist status in your field. It goes without saying that people are usually kicked out of this programme at different stages of the training for a number of reasons, chief amongst them being that the doctor not being able to cope with the combination of intense academic programmes and taking good care of their patients. It is on record that less than 10 percent of these new specialists are granted consultant status and subsequently retained by these specialised institutions while others are left to their own fate to look for places where their services may be needed. Now, this is the academic life of every doctor and their social life is most undesirable. Most doctors have families who endure this lifestyle with some degree of difficulty. An average doctor is usually broke and more so has a ‘disorganised’ social life. It is only befitting that the government should actually appreciate the services of the noble profession rather than playing politics with it. The government as a matter of urgency should restructure the health sector based on hard work, input and professionalism; there should be a blueprint for a sustainable health management strategy that takes into account the inputs of this noble profession vis-a-viz relativity, retainership of their leadership role in hospitals and adequate remuneration. This recent policy of specialist status for those that don’t have any laid down programme for academic advancement in the health sector is wrong and sets a dangerous precedent. If other health workers will set up a process of certified training mechanism that will be shown to be thorough with the aim of adding a measurable value to their respective professional expertise leading to breeding of recognised international health specialist, then they should have their own specialist recognition naturally, but not before. Until then, the title of consultant with specialist benefits should be given to those that truly deserve it-THE DOCTORS. Samuels wrote in from Awka.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:01:41 +0000