Industrial actions by medical doctors in Nigeria have never and will probably never be greeted by cheers from the general public. By industrial actions I am specifically referring to strikes. The usual trend is that in the first few days, the public may understand or even sympathize with the doctors and focus on the ineptitude of the sitting government for not being able to avert the action. This goodwill however burns out quickly as stories of people who lost loved ones from closed public hospitals filter in. At that point, the doctors are reminded of all the oaths they swore and how they are 'allopathic' by the same public that was hurling abuses at government a few hours earlier. The streets are simply not loyal.
There are typically no victors or vanquished at the end of the day. Strikes usually occur at a price of human lives. This in my opinion simply reflects the value Nigerians place on human life. By Nigerians, I am referring to the generality of people who hold the green passport and NOT medical doctors singly. It cuts across board really and the doctors are just cut from that same fabric so why are we surprised?
I stumbled on an acerbic anti-Nigerian doctors post on Facebook recently and the interesting feature was the way the writer opened his essay with the names he will be called by doctors for expressing his opinion. He said he knew he would be called things like 'bastard' and 'idiot' so he started by first ascribing all the derogatory words to himself before going on. This made me very ashamed. To his credit, he was spot on as the comments at the end of the post were exactly as he anticipated. His prescience was quite remarkable and the doctors fell right into the trap. They took him to the cleaners for writing such and replied him with a truckload of obscenities. I was going to leave a mild admonishing comment on the post for my 'esteemed colleagues' but I didn't think it was the right forum to engage them. Unfortunately, most of the culpable ones on the day will probably never visit this blog.
I don't think doctors help their cause much with such caustic engagements with 'laymen' on social media. The man out of his ignorance of the circumstances surrounding the strike has drawn first blood by insulting doctors publicly. How does hurling back abuses solve anything? As a matter of fact, I think it's shameful that doctors make such unguarded statements and use such foul language in social circles. You are supposed to be a DOCTOR! That is perhaps the most noble of ALL professions. Getting into the ring with people who don't know better reduces you to their level instantly. Winston Churchill aptly submits that you will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks. You simply must not dignify every opinion with a response! It is akin to fighting a mad man in the market square and you expect people around to decipher which of the two fighters is the insane one.
In fact, our elders say 'he who is clad in white clothes does not fight a man carrying palm oil'. The internet never forgets so we must be extremely cautious when we address seeming aggressors. We make the same mistake time and time again. Our profession naturally has an aura of dignity and class and it is bad enough that Nigerians think strikes are solely for higher salaries and thus quickly brand the herd as 'greedy'. Even when other health workers go on strike, ask the average market woman who visits the hospital and she'll tell you 'Won ni awon doctor da ise le' i.e. 'they say the doctors are on strike' even when it is JOHESU. We then compound our problems by reducing ourselves repeatedly to the level of the same people we claim and are supposed to be 'better than'?
Please note that because of the peculiarity of the entity called Nigeria, it is probably impossible to avert strikes in the health sector. I have also NOT said doctors should not go on strike if it is necessary to get government's attention. All I have said is some decorum is not too much to ask of a medical doctor. We must conduct ourselves in a manner befitting and becoming of this calling. Engage constructively. Seek to understand rather than reply. Seek to educate where necessary. Using gutter language and sounding like a bus conductor is simply not good enough.
The basic medical curriculum needs a review in my opinion. We need to incorporate some poise and finishing into doctors training in Nigerian medical schools. I agree that it may be from a faulty foundation at pre-tertiary level. This does not still preclude that fact that it can be learned. It is not enough to have knowledge and be incongruous and brash. There's a common saying that knowledge is knowing WHAT to say while wisdom is knowing WHEN and HOW to say it. Also remember that the good book says in Proverbs that 'Wisdom (not knowledge) is the principal thing'. This review in medical curriculum should also include courses in diction, public speaking and relations and must be as vital a prerequisite as the core medical courses in conferment of degrees. I say this because I've heard some doctors speak and I was amazed. Last week, the NMA in Lagos sent a representative to a Channels TV morning show to update the public on the strike and his performance was abysmal.
Strikes are here to stay in Nigeria. Not because the doctors are the devil's first cousins or because they are greedy. It is simply because they are Nigerians. And in Nigeria, there is simply no value for human life. From the government that leaves the hospitals and schools derelict to the policeman who will cock his rifle to shoot motorists who refuse to park for stop and search to the bus driver who over-speeds with passengers aboard to make many trips to the importer who uses yam flour to make diabetic drugs to the manufacturer who reduced the number of sardines in Titus from four in 2010 to two in 2014 because of bad economy. We are all the same.
If we must go on strike, we should at least manage the action effectively. That is the very least we can do for our dignity.
P.S...
The 'first' death from Ebola in Lagos was recorded during the week. Don't ask me why I put first in parentheses. Now that we know the virus has reached our shores, please take extra precaution with your personal hygiene.
Whether you think it's a melodramatic cry of wolf where there's none or you have a standing covenant with Heaven that it's not your portion, it is still your hygiene anyway. So you will only benefit more from making it better, with or without the Ebola scare. So, wash your hands properly and as often as you can. There is a technique for hand-washing as recommended by the WHO, look it up. In the mean time, get hand sanitizers and use them copiously. With the nationwide strike, I'm not quite sure where suspected cases are supposed to report to but there are some contact numbers circulating in the media, do well to get them especially if you're particularly at risk. My worry is that the symptoms are rather non-specific so diagnosis from history taking may be difficult but still get checked out.
More than before, I will stand in faith with Nigerian churchgoers on this one. It is well. It just has to be because the last thing we need in our virtual healthcare system is such a viral outbreak. I agree that we may not be the best people in the world but fate can certainly be kinder to us with all we are grappling with already.
May God help us.
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So my wife and I were in Onikan-bound traffic on Ahmadu Bello bridge about three weeks ago and she spotted some dude hawking 'ice cream'. The sun wasn't taking any prisoners that particular afternoon so when she offered me Fanyogo I didn't think it was such a bad idea given the circumstances. Oh, how wrong I was...
I insisted a check of the expiry dates on the packs of the dairy products before she paid just to be safe and they appeared to be in order. So, I occupied myself in traffic with frozen Fanyogo forgetting that I had a direct six hour flight the following morning. Having done a lot of interstate travelling during my medical school, I had inculcated the habit of thoroughly emptying my bowels before embarking on any journey. So I was confident that whatever happened, an early morning lavatory expedition would sufficiently fix any threats - given that science asserted that normal gastric emptying time i.e. the time it will take the contents of the stomach to completely empty into the small intestine, was four hours. Again, I was very wrong!
The elders say he who the gods want to kill, they first make mad. That was the only tenable explanation I could posit considering the next flaw in judgement I committed. As if I had not tested fate enough on the ground, I devoured the in-flight 'meal' Arik served me. It was probably because I was particularly hungry as I had intentionally skipped breakfast to forestall any digestive exigencies while in transit. Arik Air, being proudly Nigerian, offered me something with some semblance of cooked rice and chicken and red eyes made me chew like my life depended on it.
The first red flag was when I had to empty my bladder mid-flight. I usually never enter the conveniences aboard but the urge to do 'number one' was too strong to ignore. Folks, male and female, had been coming in and going out of the john so I was deeply disgusted when I entered and the toilet bowl was almost filled to the brim with sullage and toilet paper. I ran back! How had all these people I had been seeing entering and exiting been using this I wondered. I accosted one of the attendants and asked if there was another loo as the central one was apparently non-functional. He didn't seem surprised and pointed another to me at the rear of the plane. I entered and it was exactly the same. I suddenly realized I could actually manage till we landed.
Forty minutes to our estimated time of landing, I felt a strange quickening in my rectum. It couldn't be what I thought now, could it?. At how many thousand feet above sea level and with Arik's wonderment facilities. Surely the devil wasn't that powerful. Or was he?
I recited every nursery rhyme that came to mind just to remain focused on everything but my own gastrointestinal tract. I even used 'twinkle twinkle little star' as the second stanza of 'Solomon Grundy'. I wasn't planning to face Immigration Services with soiled clothes. Finally to my relief, we started our descent into Heathrow and eventually landed. It then took ages before my pilot graciously parked his aircraft. The taxiing was endless it seemed. It was the day that my colon was doing the rumba that we had to wait for ten minutes because the pilot could not cross an 'active runway'. Many are the afflictions of the righteous!
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I entered the first lavatory I saw as we approached the arrival gates but apparently many folks on the flight had been holding their urges also, no thanks to Arik. The room was filled with men going about their business and I decided against unleashing what was in me there. It would have been too embarrassing. A queue was already forming to even use the bathrooms anyway so I ran out again. This was London after-all, not Murtala. I could swear there were other conveniences close-by, I just had to find them. They couldn't be as blunted mentally as my people. A few feet away, I saw the yellow sign and this time the room was bigger and empty. Ah! Devil na area-boy but God na Godfather.
At that point, I remembered a picture I had seen on social media that said
'people say love is the best feeling but finding a toilet when you have diarrhea is a better feeling'. I also remembered the chorus of Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball'. Thank God the (un)fortunate toilet bowl that encountered me was inanimate so it couldn't say what it 'saw' that fateful day. Flesh and blood had not revealed to it what was coming that Tuesday.
It would have been interesting though carrying such a 'burden' to processing desk of the British Immigration service. I imagine I would have been sweating profusely by that time with a lot of twitching. I'd also probably have been stammering when answering questions about my purpose of visit to the UK. It would have been a miracle convincing the officer that a bag of 'coco' hadn't burst in my stomach. Na okada for carry me go back Oshodi!
The enemy came like a 'flood'. Literally. Jehovah had the final say and delivered me!
Someone shout a mighty hallelujah...
Imagine the headline in Punch newspaper the next day. 'Thirty year old APC medical doctor shits on himself en-route London'.
Eighteen days ago, the Nigerian Medical Association embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike action to protest among other things, an agreement reached by the Federal Government with another group of health workers - JOHESU. The doctors refuse to share the appellation of 'Consultant' with pharmacists, laboratory scientists and morticians. I have shamefully watched each party pervade the print and electronic media with inane propaganda. I am not going to apportion blame as it really doesn't matter anymore. People will die. Whether they are called consultants or specialists, there's only one outcome. The coin pretty much has the same face on either side so it doesn't matter much how the toss goes. I have worked in four government hospitals since I qualified as a medical doctor and all four hospitals were headed by doctors. Did that stop the rot and the blatant daily human sacrificial rituals? The Federal minister of health has always been a medical doctor since Lord Lugard left us. What bearing has this had on the state of our hospitals? Like Nigeria's presidency and religious bigots, it really doesn't matter who leads, so long the job gets done. If the ambulance driver will put the hospitals in order and stop people from avoidably dying, then by all means, get the man a suit and let him start work. Ego tripping at the expense of human lives won't achieve anything. Well, except a depopulation, which the over 100 million abjectly poor Nigerians will briskly correct by procreating out of idleness, power failure and frustration.
I feel for the doctors though. I just completed a 28-day course of antiretroviral drugs this morning as prophylaxis for a needle stick injury I sustained during a Cesarean section on an HIV positive woman last month. It was interesting because aside the paltry N10,000 I got monthly as hazard allowance, the only other things I got were 'Eeya, sorry o'. Ah, yes, my Head of Department was gracious enough to give me a day and half off work to 'recuperate'. The risks are real. Pilots, armed robbers and kidnappers ply high-risk trades also but at least they get commensurate pay. Doctors are bitter they earn so little after the many years of study and grueling training and now, the only small thing they have going for them in the form of self-aggrandizement, JOHESU is coming after. Haba!
It is also worthy of note that the strike has not even caught the attention of the occupants of Aso Rock after eighteen days. He's busy welcoming Malala, chasing after naughty Governors and scheming how to raise Nigeria's debts by an extra $1billion to fund 2015 elections....oh sorry, to fight Boko Haram. NUPENG & PENGASSAN only need to issue notice of a warning strike and the government listens. But, it is well...
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Human beings are funny. We spend so much resources -currency and human blood- on executing wars
when peace is actually significantly cheaper. We are the only species that commits so much resources into wrecking havoc on ourselves and shedding blood. Sometime while we watched the World Cup in Rio, Isreal and Palestine stepped up their acrimony and what has ensued is wanton destruction of lives and property. Interestingly, I can't recall now when last there was peace in the world and I doubt very strongly there ever will be. Russia-Ukraine, South Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Central African Republic and Syria. The list lengthens by the day. Today, there's news that 'pro-Russia' rebels in Ukraine shot down a Malaysia airlines commercial plane killing 295 people on-board. We seem bent on running the human race aground. Remember the admonition about wars and rumors of war? We're right on course. All the best ya'll. Michael Jackson's U.S.A For Africa's 1985 'We are the world' hit just came up on my laptop ironically.
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Finally, I will quickly site a caveat. I'm going to hit the Nigerian 'born-again' nerve and personally, I don't care whose ox is gored. You can bow every morning to a deity shaped as your 'Papa or G.O' if you wish, so long you sleep better at night. So, this picture
popped up on my timeline on Facebook repeatedly last week. I didn't take a close look at it as I am now accustomed to the cow-dung that has now pervaded social media. Somehow, this picture just didn't go away and so I took a closer look and regretted the action immediately. The header on the picture was a prayer supposedly from a popular G.O in the spiritual circles. The prayer suggested a supernatural blessing by way of a brand new car that will have a key just like the ones in the picture. The prayer further instructed those that believed such a miracle would be their portion in the month of July to type a big 'Amen'. Unsurprisingly, there were probably half a million Nigerian Amens and it then occurred to me why the picture didn't leave my timeline. I choose to believe that someone over-zealously put up such a prayer on Papa's Facebook account. Having read such a prayer, did any of the people who hurriedly type 'Amen' ask by what means this tear rubber Mercedes and Lexus cars will come? Have you done anything in the last month that you expect will yield a car or is it just your faith as small as a mustard seed? Be reminded that faith without works is dead and you must sow to reap because for everything under heaven, there is a season. I am quite sure that if that prayer had read 'You will fly your own private jet this week', the Amens would have been just as much. Diaris God!
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I know I said finally before but something just occurred to me. In my current location, I pass by a veterinary clinic everyday on the way out. In front of the clinic a nice green vehicle with the words 'Animal Ambulance' is parked. I guffawed in Yoruba. They have a functional air-conditioned vehicle designated to convey ill or wounded pets like dogs, cats, rabbits and squirrels. They also have vaccination schedules and routine medical check-ups for the pets.
I then remembered that NMA was fighting JOHESU in my home country and the image of the ambulance that brought my beloved Aunty Folashade to LUTH that cold January night came to my mind. I quickly continued humming the 'Konko Below' by Lagbaja bellowing through my earphones.
#KoKanAiye
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