The problem with the striking doctors

Years back, my senior brother was very ill and was admitted to a private hospital. Late one night, his situation worsened. My mother panicked and called for help; the nurse responded. The doctor was gone for the day. She asked the nurse to call the doctor. The nurse refused because the doctor did not countenance being disturbed by that time of the night. In the morning, in an argument with the doctor as to why he could not be reached, even if, somebody’s life was at stake, my mother lost her temper and hyperventilated on him; calling him wicked, mean-spirited, murderous, etc. She promptly checked her son out of his hospital.

My aunt’s daughter was extremely sick and she rushed her to a hospital. The doctor was not on seat but was around. A message was sent to him: a distraught woman brought in her desperately ill daughter and his attention was urgently needed. The doctor replied that he was playing lawn tennis, and will not attend to them until after his game of tennis. They waited. By the time the doctor finished his game, her daughter’s condition had further deteriorated; the child died. Like most Nigerians, in their limitless capacity for suffering, she was reticent. Uncomplainingly, she buried and mourned her daughter. There are too many sad and heartrending stories about the wicked and murderous antics of Nigerian medical doctors. It require not prophetic powers but just common sense to know that in a hospital with a number of in house patients, cases of emergency must, periodically, arise. And it required only basic regard for human life to make provision for such emergencies. After all, these are patients that have paid for the doctor’s services, and he was, therefore, morally obligated to take care of them. With no doctor on the late night shift, he should accept phone calls when human lives are in danger. If unwilling to leave the snuggery of his house for the hospital, he should be able to give directions to the nurses on duty, through the phone. To refuse to take calls, even when lives were in danger is loathsome. That a young girl was sick to the point of death would have stirred the compassion and spurred the response of even a ghoul. Therefore, that a medical doctor sworn to the Hippocratic Oath could, in his contempt for human lives, continued with his game of tennis, instead of attending to a dying girl left me, since my teenage days, wondering the kind of humanity some of these Nigerian doctors represent.

The interview by a leading member of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Efem Enang, showed that the problems of these doctors are arrogance, megalomania and narcissism. He talked about doctors being special and therefore, “should be treated specially”. What really makes medical doctors special? Is it their versatile and recondite knowledge – are they all polymaths and pansophists? Interestingly, most Nigerian doctors are not known for their erudition. Secondly, arrogance is an attribute of the ill-baked and half-educated not the seasoned and enlightened. Or are they special because they are entrusted with the care of the sick, and thus, their professional judgments determine the life and death of the sick?

Are pilots not special? On a flight, a pilot takes professional decisions that can imperil or save the lives of hundreds of people. The police are special because they put their lives on the line to enforce the law and protect the society from criminal predators. Without their continued commitment to these ideals, criminals will wreck havoc on entire communities: raping, robbing and killing. Even, night soil men are special. Their strike will reduce the city to vast festering cesspool of effluvium, disease and death. Every profession, in its own way, is special. For medical doctors to feel that theirs is the only special professions is megalomania – false feeling of importance, and narcissism – excessive interest in, and excessive admiration of, oneself

Dr Enang talked about, “In those developed clime, the moment you are recognized as a doctor, you can be given anything that you want”. That is patent falsehood – fictional nonsense. There is no where you can get whatever you want because you are a doctor. Moreover, “in those developed clime” the medical profession is tightly regulated. It offers no latitude for the mindless shenanigan that pervades medical practice in Nigeria. Many Nigerian doctors, with their poor training and wrong orientation, cannot qualify for practice in “those developed clime” and the very few that do will be humbled and disciplined, and have their wings clipped, by the stringent laws and uncompromising professionalism.

In addition, he said that, “There is no way you will expect me to earn the same wages with others in the allied profession”. Does that mean that irrespective of their own education, experience and expertise in their respective fields, those in the allied health professions can never earn as much as a medical doctor? He must think that doctors are the princes and princesses of the health industry and other health professionals can only be their loyal servitors. The object of the strike, Dr Enang made clear was not to improve the healthcare delivery system in Nigeria. It was all about furthering the doctor’s snooty and self-seeking interests and undermining the other professionals in the health industry. The NMA should snap out of its megalomania and narcissism, and also, learn to respect the other professions of the health industry. These will enable them to be more circumspect with future strikes. For when they impetuously engage in strikes like casual laborers, they discredit themselves and abase their professed specialness.