Not a few Nigerians were outraged after the April 6, annoyance triggered by the House of Representatives. On that day, the lower house tabled for a second reading, a bill banning doctors fresh from Nigerian universities from going abroad to practice immediately after leaving school. The bill prescribes that only doctors who have practiced for five years in the country will be given licences and allowed to practice in foreign countries.
In this piece, a former Attorney General of Rivers State Worgu Boms tells an interesting story.
The Tale of Two Doctors
Kelsey Harrison, professor of G&O, is a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt. In his moving, scholarly Autobiography, “An Arduous Climb, from the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice-Chancellor”, in that Book, this leading medical Doctor, at page 145 wrote, actually, revealed:
” one occasion was memorable. An abnormal hysterectomy for the treatment of uterine fibroids had just started when, with the belly opened and the uterus exposed, there was suddenly a power failure affecting the whole city.
“The illness had been so long neglected that the woman had become grossly anaemic and her uterus was the size of a full-term pregnancy.
“…The only light source in the operating theatre was from two hand torches.
” While a nurse went outside the hospital premises in search of a new set of torch batteries and hence a better light source, it was decided to make use of natural daylight.
” The operation was temporarily stopped. I covered the wound with a sterile towel and placed my hands firmly over the wound…
” The plan was to rotate and turn around the heavy operating table into a new position whereby natural light coming into the operating theatre from all three windows would do as a light source.
” Because of lack of maintenance, the roll-on and hydraulic devices in the table were all jammed. Unfortunately, having to move the heavy table into another position required more persons than were present in the theatre”.
The setting for this insufferably depressing narrative was in the 70s- the last century.
What of today, the 21st century?
The Second Tale. Remember, it is Tale of Two Doctors.
Tale 2
Aaron Ojule is a professor of Chemical Pathology. He is a former Chief Medical Director of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.
He delivered his Inaugural Lecture on 27 June 2019 titled “Life As a Chemical Reaction: The Clinical Laboratory and The Battle For Life.”
At pages 59/60 of that very important Lecture, this honest and important Teacher of Doctors declared:
” To make matters worse, most of our clinical laboratories do not participate in External Quality Assurance Programmes.
” EQA is a system for objectively checking…..
” The end result, therefore, is that there is no guarantee for the accuracy and reliability of laboratory tests from any Nigerian clinical laboratory. Except for the few private laboratories WITH INTERNATIONAL ACCREDITATION.
” What is the implication of this? It implies that if a NIGERIAN clinical laboratory gives you a result that says, for example, your blood sugar ( eg in Diabetes) is normal, we cannot say with any certainty that it is truly normal. You should accept the result with a pinch of salt.
“We might therefore erroneously be saying that you do not have Diabetes Mellitus ( wrong diagnosis) or that you are in good control ( wrong assessment) when, in actual fact, you truly have the disease or you are in poor control.
” IT FURTHER IMPLIES THAT WE CANNOT VOUCH THAT THE LABORATORY RESULT GIVEN TO YOU IS THE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.”
( emphasis, not mine)
It is in this depressingly low state of our Medicare, that has negatively progressed from the last century, and persisted till date, that all our Lawmakers can do to improve the situation is to begin an academic debate of a “Bill For an Act, to amend the” Doctors Law to force them not to go overseas to practice!
That way, according to the Law makers, there would be constant electricity, such that an eponymous surgeon-prof Harrison would not have his surgery dangerously interrupted by an outage;
that way, repairs and maintenance of equipment and facilities will be taken seriously, such that turning and moving, for example, operating tables, when needed, would be easy and not need a Super Man to move it; that way, our clinical results would be clinically accurate and much more, all because a Law had banned Doctors from going overseas to ply their trade.
Justice J. M kobani (a member of the literati ) of the Rivers State High Court, was right, damn right, spot on.
In one Judgment in a case I did before his Lordship, that brilliant Judge, now retired, observed, quite insightfully:
“Nigerians love climbing the tree from the top.”
This is exactly what the National Assembly is doing with the Medical Doctors Law.
When passed, and signed into Law, let us see how that helps. I know it will NOT!
Is it today we started seeing Laws?
My name is WorguBoms.
I am a lawyer.
