Residency Program in Nigeria: Nigerian Resident Doctors tell their story.
Morning, afternoon and evening.
Nigerians, it’s few days to a national indefinite strike by resident doctors. This strike is avertable if the government is serious. We would like you to take a walk with us on some of these issues.
The government often runs to the court of public opinion to blackmail the doctor, they quote percentages to hoodwink the uninitiated, misquote our oaths to make us look bad but that shall continue no more.
It is now time to tell our story, as it is often said,until lions learn to tell their stories, it is only the tale of the hunter’s valor that we shall be inundated with. We shall not keep quiet, we shall shout and energize the bellow to fire the cause.
A quick stop at Ogun state reveals a cantankerous leader who starts a charade on air of how he increased the hazard allowance of the doctors in the state from N5,000 to the folds of 300%. What he actually did was to increase the monies to N15,000 and then tax it to put N12,000 in those doctors’ pockets.
Dwelling on that, we shall attempt to do a comparative arithmetic with this man. The doctors there had by themselves been providing Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) worth at least 200% (N30,000) per month of his supposedly new untaxed hazard allowance.
In the event that they had hazardous exposure to the hepatitis B for example, the doctors by themselves had been procuring post exposure prophylaxis worth at least 800% (N120,000) of his supposedly new untaxed hazard allowance. *Mr Teacher, don’t teach us nonsense!*
Let’s leave our medical skills and remind you that we were quite adept in arithmetics
appurtenances during this pandemic so that you can be the judge of who is really being fair to whom.
Apparently the rotten mango didn’t fall far from the tree, the federal government have started their own drama too. Corona sauntered in and the health workers were asked to take on the task head-on.
The implications of being a health worker were this; while others stayed at home during the lock down, health workers went to work. While others were at less risk of a novel unseen enemy, the health workers commingled with it. Then when it was time to pay for allowance, but apparently that promise can be likened to that of a man who says anything to have his way when his corey is raging. Now FG wants to stall and if possible renege on a signed agreement. Isn’t that unheard of? Evidently not in our beloved country.
The antics of the federal government would not work this time around, your machiavellian arrangement will not be given a chance. We have seen first hand how monies since 2014 are yet to be paid because we were patient and attempted to be understanding with people who could not keep promises, but its acolytes are quick to quote to cause a stalemate.
The hippocratic oath enumerates proper ethics and states clearly that the doctor should enjoy the practise of her art. The oath is often misconstrued as saying a doctor should not receive what is rightfully hers, says ‘Oh, that’s a doctor, let’s let her have these goods or those services for free!’ No, not at all, in fact the prices are often hiked with a pseudo-assumption that doctors are rich, where is the fairness in that?
People of Nigeria, join us in telling the government that enough is enough, we aren’t asking for newspaper allowances, car allowances, house allowances, wardrobe allowances just hazard allowances, is that too much to ask?
Dr Emana Lexis
