US Physician Recommends Antidotes to Incessant Doctors’ Strike

Fidelis David in Akure  

A United States-based medical doctor, Dr. Marindoti Oludare has described on-going warning strike by resident doctors as a recurring decimal, urging the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to evolve an effective health insurance scheme that would nip the problem in the bud.

Oludare, also Convener of Social Rehabilitation Gruppe (SRG), acknowledged that  the demands of the doctors were valid, but the governments needed to evolve policies that would stabilise healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

He made the recommendation in a statement he personally issued yesterday, saying the way to start “is to work on the Nigerian economy in such a way that the youths will be empowered through job provisions.”

He said: “When they are gainfully employed, they will be able to contribute immensely to the National Health Insurance Scheme that allows the young and active  population to fund the medical bills of the elderly and physically  challenged citizenry. This same fund can also take care of doctors’ residency and other welfare needs to make medics perform optimally.”

While adminiting that the doctors’ demand for a 200 percent increase in their consolidated salary was valid, he demurred that demands for salary increase from doctors and other health workers would continue to recur, if the issue of Nigeria’s debilitating economic situation was not urgently addressed.

He requested that the governments should, in the interim, invite the doctors to a negotiation table to find a middle ground.

This is even as the medic also described the utterances of the Labour Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige, as regrettable, for saying the resident doctors “are suffering from entitlement syndrome.”

Besides, Oludare noted that the five-year compulsory work period before doctors could be licensed as a way of dissuading them from running abroad, is at best of no effect, as foreign countries don’t need a Nigerian licence to engage any qualified doctor.

“The Nigerian licence that the doctors will have to obtain after working in Nigeria will only harm the medical doctors working in Nigeria. You do not need a Nigerian licence before you can practise medicine outside Nigeria. So these things are very valid and very sane demands that they (the doctors) are  making on the federal government.  

“However, when the federal government comes out and meets the demands of the doctors, other health workers will also come up with theirs; so, there is a need for rethinking on the way the healthcare financing goes on in Nigeria, essentially. 

“That is one thing that will bring a lasting solution. There should be a one-to-one replacement of doctors. The strike is for the benefit of the people. What is the essence of you going to a doctor who is not motivated and cannot under such conditions be focused?”

US Physician Recommends Antidotes to Incessant Doctors’ Strike

Fidelis David in Akure  

A United States-based medical doctor, Dr. Marindoti Oludare has described on-going warning strike by resident doctors as a recurring decimal, urging the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to evolve an effective health insurance scheme that would nip the problem in the bud.

Oludare, also Convener of Social Rehabilitation Gruppe (SRG), acknowledged that  the demands of the doctors were valid, but the governments needed to evolve policies that would stabilise healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

He made the recommendation in a statement he personally issued yesterday, saying the way to start “is to work on the Nigerian economy in such a way that the youths will be empowered through job provisions.”

He said: “When they are gainfully employed, they will be able to contribute immensely to the National Health Insurance Scheme that allows the young and active  population to fund the medical bills of the elderly and physically  challenged citizenry. This same fund can also take care of doctors’ residency and other welfare needs to make medics perform optimally.”

While adminiting that the doctors’ demand for a 200 percent increase in their consolidated salary was valid, he demurred that demands for salary increase from doctors and other health workers would continue to recur, if the issue of Nigeria’s debilitating economic situation was not urgently addressed.

He requested that the governments should, in the interim, invite the doctors to a negotiation table to find a middle ground.

This is even as the medic also described the utterances of the Labour Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige, as regrettable, for saying the resident doctors “are suffering from entitlement syndrome.”

Besides, Oludare noted that the five-year compulsory work period before doctors could be licensed as a way of dissuading them from running abroad, is at best of no effect, as foreign countries don’t need a Nigerian licence to engage any qualified doctor.

“The Nigerian licence that the doctors will have to obtain after working in Nigeria will only harm the medical doctors working in Nigeria. You do not need a Nigerian licence before you can practise medicine outside Nigeria. So these things are very valid and very sane demands that they (the doctors) are  making on the federal government.  

“However, when the federal government comes out and meets the demands of the doctors, other health workers will also come up with theirs; so, there is a need for rethinking on the way the healthcare financing goes on in Nigeria, essentially. 

“That is one thing that will bring a lasting solution. There should be a one-to-one replacement of doctors. The strike is for the benefit of the people. What is the essence of you going to a doctor who is not motivated and cannot under such conditions be focused?”