CITING mischief, Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Wednesday faulted paramedics/allied health professionals at the University College Hospital (UCH) over plans to down tools to protest doctors' appointment as leaders of the sector.
Meanwhile, President of the Association of Pathologists of Nigeria, an affiliate body of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Kenneth Iregbu, has deplored the age-long rivalry between medical doctors and medical professionals.
NMA said the workers' agitation for the removal of appointed doctors and impending strike were against public interest and international best practices.
The paramedics/allied health professionals had threatened to embark on industrial action following the appointment of a laboratory physician (pathologist) as the Deputy Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (DCMAC) of the Laboratory Services in UCH, Ibadan.
NMA Chairman, Dr. Francis Faduyile, who spoke in Lagos at an event to herald the 53rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the NMA, tagged: "Eko 2013", said Nigerian doctors stood by the decision of the UCH chief medical director (CMD) to appoint doctors as heads and called on the Federal Government "not to be cowed by the health workers' threat, as this appointment was in tandem with international standards."
Faduyile said it was important to note that pathologists are medical doctors who had gone for five or six years' post-graduate specialist training in laboratory medicine conferring them specialist laboratory physicians and they have assistants like scientists, technologists and technicians, among others.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja yesterday, Iregbu stressed that the nation's healthcare system was being seriously sacrificed to appease people, whom he alleged, were on an ego trip and chasing shadow in a bid to satisfy inordinate ambitions.
Iregbu, who is also chairman of NMA Committee on Inter-professional relationship, wondered how a father (the Ministry of Health) would sit back and allow its 'children' fight and not make sincere efforts to settle their grievances.
He added: "Though the blame for the rivalry cuts across, government should take all the blame. Government is taking everything from a political perspective. It has been doing nothing. The Federal Ministry of Health has done nothing tangible about the contentious issues. Government has failed to put its feet down in finding solutions.
He took time to take on those who are calling for doctors to stop heading hospitals, describing them as ignorant.
He said: "There is an orchestrated gang-up to sabotage anything the doctor does or is involved in irrespective of the consequences of such sabotage. This is most unfortunate as this is the only known country in the world where the allied health professionals challenge, oppose and sabotage the doctors' leadership position in the patient care.
"In the last couple of weeks to months, the media have been awash with all sorts of claims by the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) either directly or through their various amalgamated unions, the National Union of Pharmacists, Technologists and Professionals Allied to Medicine (NUPTAM) and the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) deliberately misinforming Nigerians and issuing threats of industrial actions over issues that are clear as daylight."
He called on other medical personnel in the health sector to rethink their 'appetite' for strikes in the interest of the country.
The Guardian
If they are not happy with the process there they would definately protest. They surely have a right to do that and something has to be done fast.