“The man who sews my gown is a doctor. He makes the best gown.
And some will be specialists, some will be GPs, some will be
farmers”
— Prof. Isaac Adewole, Minister of Health
Any graduate of a Nigerian university can attest to the fact
that one of the most demanding courses is medicine. It takes the
longest duration to complete and requires total concentration with
discipline thus earning medical students the reputation of
bookworms. Many have reached an advanced stage to be dropped by
stringent academic standards.
A medical student lives in the midst of books. He is always
surrounded by a world of diagrams, charts, big books and has to
constantly go through these materials.
Following this sort of academic stress, what the medical student
is offered in today’s Nigeria as a vocational suggestion is farming
or tailoring which they could have learnt at home or in some
institute without the stress of cramming all sorts of words and
cutting through cadavers for several years in medical college.
According to the World Health Organisation, Nigeria needs a
ratio of 1 doctor to 600 people. The present ratio is way above
that with the country needing 303,333 doctors to meet this
requirement but presently has below 40,000. The ratio now exceeds 1
doctor to 6,000 Nigerians.
The Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige, in his remarks on
national TV this week claimed Nigeria had more than enough doctors.
From a point of view which favours Ngige, Nigeria has more doctors
than the available standard quality medical facilities in the
country can take as staff simply because we have too little of
these facilities to cater to the population of the country which
stands at close to 200 million.
There is a resulting unemployment for doctors who despite the
plentitude of patients are denied that medium of hospitals and
clinics with which to reach patients. The medical doctor cannot
hawk their services on the streets. They need that edifice where
the patient is admitted, goes through tests and where they can
function. A lack of these facilities is what makes it appear to
Ngige that Nigeria has enough medical doctors.
The truth remains that availability and access to healthcare are
poor in most areas of the country especially in the rural areas.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, admitted to this point
when he claimed that there was a concentration of doctors in the
urban areas and very few in the rural parts.
Ngige is wrong when he says we should ‘export’ doctors because
we have surplus. We need these doctors. Unemployment and brain
drain in the health sector are not due to sufficiency in healthcare
services in Nigeria. They are due to insufficient opportunities to
provide healthcare services.
As of 2017, Nigeria had the third highest child mortality rate
in the world. One out of every 10 children or 100 out of every
1,000 would not live to adulthood as the statistics reflect.
According to the WHO, 300,000 die from malaria every year and
215,000 die from HIV/AIDS. Some 97% of Nigeria’s population are
also prone to malaria. Nigeria has the poorest sanitation system
creating fears of outbreaks. Typhoid, cholera, cancer, diabetes,
hypertension and several other diseases claim the lives of
Nigerians in millions every year.
With the figures still high in deaths and those susceptible to
disease outbreak without instant medication and the lack of
emergency ambulance response across the country, it is not proper
for Adeoye to suggest that doctors take to tailoring when their
skills are still required while Ngige suggests that doctors can
leave the country because they are in surplus.
These statements are coming from a minister of health who had
lectured students to become doctors and from a minister of labour
who is a doctor himself. Why go through the stress to teach a
student when you know they may end up a tailor? Why does the
minister of labour think the country does not need healthcare
services when it clearly does?
Ngige rounds off his argument on Nigeria not needing doctors by
claiming they can travel abroad to gain experience and acquire
wealth which they would send home as foreign exchange. He also
suggests that they can come back to invest in the country through
private practice like a friend of his (the minister) has done.
Ngige appears like he has a point in the previous paragraph. It
is true there is a need for global knowledge and exposure in the
medical field. However, why does Nigeria not seek instead to train
her doctors to that level in the long period of time they spend in
school?
Ngige’s arguments reek of what the Afrobeat legend, Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti, would have called “colonial mentality”. In Cuba,
the country has a lot of skilled doctors and even exports their
services especially during periods of humanitarian crisis without
necessarily having to send them to sharpen their skills
anywhere.
The argument that they would also invest in local healthcare by
coming back to build their own hospitals shows that Ngige as the
Minister of Labour is aware of the little opportunities available
to Nigerian doctors to raise capital to fund private practice and
hence suggests that they travel out to gather money. Is he
admitting to failure of the government in remuneration of doctors
in Nigeria so they cannot establish private hospitals if they stay
in Nigeria?
Ngige concludes his argument with the claim that doctors will
send money home and it becomes foreign exchange. Here is another
admission of the labour minister that Nigerians at home may not be
productively engaged or employed and would be requiring stipends
for upkeep from relatives overseas.
Ngige’s highlight in office has been handling the Academic Staff
Union of Universities’ never ending strikes. The union has not been
fully pacified making one wonder what work Ngige has done as
Nigerian students may be academically stranded like they were for
an unduly lengthy period of recent. (Perhaps, he would suggest the
same travel-out advice to students since we have surplus).
The Nigerian Medical Association and other professional medical
bodies have come out in condemnation of Ngige. His was a careless
statement that threatened not only the soul of the medical
profession in Nigeria but also the health of Nigerians should the
few doctors we have decide to take his advice.
Strikingly, Nigeria’s minister of labour and productivity has
threatened the country’s productivity with his last interview. In
conjunction with earlier statements from the Minister of Health,
one can trace the reasoning of the government of the day and find
quickly why it has done little to address the daily pressing
concerns of average Nigerians.
Mofehintoluwa, a civil rights activist, wrote
in from Obafemi Awolowo University via koyetolu@gmail.com.
Subscribe ToNairalaw News!
Read more unmasking-ngiges-fatal-statement/