If the Government Hospitals are getting worse by the day ,is it Doctors that have been ruling this country too?

Azzez Fashina Wrote..First is, I'm tired of everybody talking about government hospitals getting worse under the management of doctors, citing the UCH/commonwealth example and so on. PLEASE, is everything not getting worse in Nigeria?? Was Nigeria not once the toast of the African continent?? Who are we today?? Is it doctors that have been ruling this nation?? Are our roads not getting worse?? Are there not many government parastatals that were once doing very well and are now failed or gone out completely?? NEPA, NITEL, Nigeria Airways, is it doctors that were managing these too??? Kindly tell me one thing/sector that is getting better in Nigeria. My dear friend, EVERYTHING in Nigeria is declining and the government hospitals are not left out of the rot. It is in NO WAY the fault of any doctor. The government is BAD!!

Secondly, like someone rightly pointed out, lets not mistake the position of CEO of a hospital (like they have in developed nations like the US), for the CMD of a hospital. Anybody can be the CEO but not anyone can be CMD. As fate will have it, the present structure in Nigeria gives the CMD the dual role of being both the chief executive officer (the managerial role) and the chief medical officer (the head of the doctors in the hospital). If this structure is to remain, then the head of doctors can only be a doctor and hence the CMD. If johesu feels strongly against this, then they should be asking for a total change in structure and organogram and not a change in personnel. It doesn't work like that. Not even in the developed nations.

Lastly, I find it very funny when people pick some certain issues and say let's adopt 'international standards' from the western world. It is quite hilarious. For want of time and space I can't go into lengthy explanations but get this please, Nigeria is NOT the US. We can aspire to be like them but let's do it the right way. There is a trend. Its a whole package. You can't just pick out some parts to adopt while neglecting the others. For one, nearly all americans have health insurance. And this singular fact has affected every aspect of their healthcare system from management to the actual healthcare delivery. We have NOTHING! Let's be wise to understand our peculiarity as we aim to copy them. Let's collectively do the right things first!

Steve lemadoro continued....Indeed we have said in different fora that the only reason Nigerian hospitals are still functional is because they are being run by doctors.Medical training teaches self denial, delayed gratification and an austere life that borders on asceticism like no other profession.That is why despite severe financial difficulties services and training have been maintained.As it was rightly pointed out, tertiary healthcare delivery in the public and private sector has tremendously improved under the watch of doctors, some examples will suffice. Laparoscopy was introduced into Nigeria years ago, from early to mid eighties it disappeared.Nigerian hospitals had been so severely damaged by the so called administrators that when doctors took over in 1985 they had to start virtually from the scratch.Of course because the facilities for training in these areas had been destroyed training was in limbo.Gradually, the rebuilding began and today laparoscopy has moved from diagnostic to operative.From sokoto to azare to yenagoa enugu, Ile ife and Lagos, Laparoscopic surgery has become so common place that, it has become a non issue.When people go to world laparoscopic institute in india, the primary trainer now advise continuation of training at professor chukwudebelus training institute.From St Nicholas and OAU Ife some years ago, renal transplantation is common place now.AKTH does as many as 3 per week sometimes.As a matter of fact, AKTH and Ife have been cleaning up the complications of transplantations done in India. AKTH I reliability gathered has also done a number of cutting edge surgery in ENT.Interventional radiology is the norm in maiduguri now.And we all know cardiac catheterization and pacemaker placement is being done In Abuja.Cidacrest is blazing the trail in ortho.Even my tiny FMC in ondo state offers illizarov technique in ortho, TURP in urology and many more.I will bore US all if I have to talk of widespread options now In Assisted reproduction, open heart surgery in Enugu,laser eye surgery in Lagos and so on. All these largely brought to bear through personal effort without a Kobo in compensation for subspecialization for doctors.Meanwhile most manufacturing pharmaceutical industries have closed shop, what we are left with are companies marketing drugs made in India and Pakistan.Even at that, the leading ones are not run by pharmacists.The only exception I am aware of is Emzor. Leading Private laboratories are either run by pathologists or by Indians, where are our friends the lab scientists? They have not demonstrated their ability to run facilities in their domains let alone a private hospital, yet they want Nigerian hospitals handed over to them.We care too much for Nigerians to allow that. Perhaps after this struggle we should have a TV series showcasing the miracles of medicine occurring through the gifted fingers of Nigerian doctors everyday in our hospitals.MDCN has said that is no advert.Nigerians don't know and it is about time they are told.