Nigeria’s suffering doctors

Once again the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has proceeded on an indefinite strike. Resident doctors are pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate emergency wards. In Nigeria they represent the largest percentage of government-employed medical practitioners. NARD frequently downs tools over poor conditions of service. Last year they did so on […]

Once again the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has proceeded on an indefinite strike. Resident doctors are pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate emergency wards. In Nigeria they represent the largest percentage of government-employed medical practitioners. NARD frequently downs tools over poor conditions of service. Last year they did so on three separate occasions. Their previous “indefinite strike” lasted a whole nine days!

This time around the strike is taking place in the most inauspicious circumstances for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Even as doctors down tools, two of the most senior figures in the APC, President Buhari and the National Leader of APC, Bola Tinubu, are in the UK receiving medical treatment for unspecified ailments. Despite the outcry, nobody should hold the two aged gentlemen’s poor health against them. However, it is pertinent to note that when President Musa Yar’adua fell sick, rather than castigate him, Nigerians loved and prayed for him due to his popularity and humility.

It is ironic that these two top political figures chose the UK for medical treatment. The third highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after Indians and Pakistanis are Nigerians. This is not because the nation has a surfeit of doctors; indeed there is a shortage. The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) says there are 74,543 registered doctors in Nigeria. Bearing in mind the nation’s assumed population of about 200 million, this puts the doctor-patient ratio in the country at 1:3,500, which falls far below the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation.

In truth, Nigerians are lucky to still have some nurses or doctors at all. They are paid a pittance in relation to medical personnel in the rest of the world. Last year seven Nigerian doctors were licensed to practice in the UK in just 24 hours (7/6/2020-8/6/2020). Over 100 more are on the waiting list; queuing up to take the exams and leave these shores.

Meanwhile, the NARD president has called on the federal government to quickly address this brain drain.

He said, “I don’t blame the doctors migrating. Look at those of us who have chosen to stay behind.”

The only way the nation can stop the rot is if government attends to the demands of doctors.

He pointed out that most resident doctors were still owed salaries and allowances. If this continues to be the case, then an ever increasing number of doctors will be queuing up to migrate.

As it stands, Nigeria’s resident doctors have no decent living standards, not enough pay to  guarantee good education for their children, no luxuries of life, no investments, and near zero retirement benefits.

Although NARD’s members are justifiably aggrieved by the delayed payment of salaries and allowances, they are not alone in being owed by government. Today’s political office holders at both state and federal levels do not consider paying workers as important as paying themselves their unjustifiably humongous allowances.

The current NARD strike comes just four months after calling off the previous one. They have accused government of failing to implement the Memorandum of Action (MOA) which caused them to suspend the strike of April, 2021. As usual, when faced with revolt against their intransigence and refusal to keep to agreements, government officials urge the disillusioned not to allow themselves to be used as “agents of destabilisation” of the nation.

NARD leadership reminds its followers of Samuel Johnson’s saying that: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” In truth the greatest agent of destabilisation in Nigeria is government itself! The Minister of Health evidently could not see the irony of his statement that dialogue remains the best approach to conflict resolution, when government serially breaches agreements with trade unions reached through dialogue!

President Buhari has kept silent on the issue of the strike which has increased the suffering under his administration. He chose instead to announce quite irrelevantly his approval of the change of name of the Ministry of Science and Technology to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation! Evidently, the penchant to consider form over substance is yet to subside. Millions that could have been far better spent settling striking doctors will now be spent on contracts for printing new letter-headed papers, “sensitisation” tours and re-branding of vehicles, websites and buildings!

In a controversial statement, Nigeria’s Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, himself a medical doctor, claimed that contrary to what many Nigerians believe, the “average Nigerian hospital” is actually equipped to handle the health of President Buhari, as well as all VIPs’. He said despite the president’s use of foreign hospitals, Nigerian hospitals were “fairly okay.” But he also said pointedly that if you have the means and desire a second opinion from abroad, why not, it is permitted. It is more than “permitted”, it is almost compulsory. Virtually all top political office holders and former governors insist on, and indeed, see it as their right to be treated overseas at public expense. This, more than anything, illustrates the low regards in which they hold Nigerian hospitals and the reason for their unwillingness to do anything about the abysmal standards.

The real problem is that these days only the poor use government hospitals. Low standards, unmotivated staff, decrepit buildings, obsolete equipment and lack of highly qualified doctors do not lend themselves towards confidence in the system. These days, citizens prefer patronising private clinics and hospitals; even those operating in bungalows, flats and all sorts of inappropriate structures.

The recurring NARD strikes are borne out of a belief that government is actually concerned about the state of healthcare provision in the nation. They are mistaken. Only the poorest go to government hospitals and successive Nigerian governments have not been known for harbouring any genuine sympathy for the plight of the poor. The reason there is no money for healthcare in Nigeria is simply because those in charge have made it their “right” to ignore Nigeria’s dilapidated hospitals and underpaid medical personnel, and be treated at public expense by Nigerian doctors practicing in countries where their services are valued and appreciated.