The health professionals, who frowned at the trend of successive government favouring medical officers, argued that the practice must stop because the physicians appointed in the last two decades were incompetent.
The appeal was made by NUAHP President, Dr Obinna Ogbonna, during an exclusive interview with The PUNCH at the opening ceremony of the health workers’ eighth national conference in Abuja.
The dietician stated that except for the successful reign of renowned economist, Prof Eyitayo Lambo, no minister taken from the medical profession has made headway in the health sector.
He said: “We are expecting Mr. President to see how there is going to be a reorganisation of the Federal Ministry of Health because we are having issues there. The physicians we have been having as ministers over the years have shown incompetence in the sense that they only look at their own areas of interest. All other healthcare professionals are marginalized and most of the time, our complaints are swept under the carpet. That’s what led us to the strike we had the other day (two weeks ago).
“We are looking forward to an overhauling and re-engineering of that sector. Then put the right set of persons in the helms of affairs. We are even advocating that those of us who are clinicians have nothing to do with administrations. We don’t have anything to do in administration there. Don’t put any physician or clinician as minister of health. It should not be anyone of us even as dieticians, pharmacists, or nurses.
“Let there be seasoned administrators who are unbiased as we had in the case of Eyitayo Lambo when he was there. Did you remember that Lambo was an economist? He was unbiased and did his work conscientiously and every one of us was glad. I can even tell you that there were not many strikes during his era (2003 to 2009) during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. These are some of the indices we are looking forward to. For all of us to work together as a team, synergy is required. Every person in the health sector is very important,” he said.
An auditor of the Trade Union Congress, the dietician also addressed the issue of salary disparity that recently became a subject of controversy between doctors and JOHESU last week, saying it was a case of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
The PUNCH reported that JOHESU had requested the adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure as was done to Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, which is the salary structure for medical and dental doctors since 2014.
In response to JOHESU’s request, the Federal Ministry of Health in a letter dated April 3, 2023, said there was an existing relativity between the CONMESS and CONHESS salary structure since 2014.
The Nigerian Medical Association, however, opposed the move, warning that adjusting CONHESS might lead to a serious crisis in the health sector.
The NMA in its letter dated June 7, 2023, addressed to the permanent secretary said the adjustment of CONHESS would have negative consequences on the health sector.
“NMA shall not sit idly by and allow anyone to degrade our salary by tampering with relativity, as this shall worsen medical brain drain with attendant negative consequences on our fragile health sector,” it said.
But Ogbonna, who is the also National Vice Chairman of the Joint Health Sector Union, made a case for other healthcare workers, saying doctors must learn to co-exist with nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and others without rancour.
He also knocked the NMA, saying it was fallacious for the doctors to believe JOHESU is seeking to be on the same salary structure as them.
“That’s a fallacy. There is no way other healthcare professionals seek the same salary package. They just want to cause delusion by giving a wrong impression to the masses who may not know. There’s what we call relativity that is already taken care of at the entry points. We know doctors train for six years but some of our people like optometrists, physiotherapists, and pharmacists also train for six years. In the ladder of service, when a house officer enters, he enters on Grade Level 10. After his housemanship and service, he goes to Grade Level 12.
“For instance, this adjusted CONMESS salary scale we are talking about. We have been on it since 2014. That’s about nine and a half years now. Theirs have been adjusted for about three to four times. The fourth one was what scattered the whole thing. They will tell us they don’t have money and that it is going to cause relativity distortion. This is wrong. Relativity has been taken care of at the point of entry into service.
“Let them continue to cry foul. A new sheriff (Tinubu) has come to town now. We have met the president and told him about this. He’s currently looking into it. But we know it’s not going to be business as usual because the publication they made last week (on disparity in wages) was even puerile and we have given a rejoinder on it. We need to allow the public to know that it’s not good that we should be discriminated against in our own profession and country. It is against the Convention of the International Labour Organisation. That we read other science courses does not mean we are incompetent or we cannot read medicine. But God has given everyone the opportunity to be in his area of interest,” he said.
