MDCAN threaten dire consequences over Health Sector Act

Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has said there would be dire consequences if Nigeria's Health Sector Act is repealed. It said in Ibadan that appointing multiple directors in tertiary hospitals in Nigeria will induce chaos.


Repealing the University Teaching Hospital Act, MDCAN said would degrade medical training of students and research, which have suffered since teaching hospitals now function like mere service hospitals.

While affirming it is not opposed to the career progression of members of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), MDCAN said it opposes holding of titular or nominal office by any staff of tertiary hospital noting that such would hinder functions of other staff.

In a statement made available to newsmen in Ibadan, the President of MDCAN, Dr Olusegun Ayodeji Oluwole noted that appointing multiple directors would subject patients to unacceptable low standard of care "if directors that are not subject to the chain of command under medical doctors are allowed in tertiary hospitals."

The release was sequel to the crisis of confidence between JOHESU members and MDCAN over appointment into key positions and career issues which have caused tensions in the health sector.

The MDCAN president called on the Nigerian Labour Congress leadership, the Academic Staff Union of Universities and other stakeholders to continue their engagement with parties to the dispute with a view to ensuring a crisis-free health sector in Nigeria. According to Oluwole, MDCAN was against consultancy appointment for support staff because appointment of consultant nurses in the University College Hospital (UCH), opened the Pandora box of demands for consultancy for pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists and other support staff.

Citing the UCH example, Oluwole alleged that "consultant nurses prevented surgeons, who performed surgical procedures on patients from inspecting the surgical wounds of their own patients."

He asserted that multiplicity of consultancy positions for cadres of support staff in tertiary hospitals would degrade the standard of care, reduce patients to objects and create an environment where medical staff that were trained to manage patients are "now controlled and directed by support staff trained primarily to dispense drugs, analyse body fluids and perform other laboratory duties".

On the call by JOHESU for the repeal of University Teaching Hospital Act, Dr Oluwole who agreed that there were hospitals outside Nigeria headed by non-doctors, he contended that any wholesale application of that to all hospitals was faulty.

"Teaching hospitals, which the Act specifically address, are usually headed by academic doctors. This is only appropriate since these hospitals were established to serve the universities that they are named after. They are primarily training institutions that are expected to research and develop as well as provide quality services. They are not for-profit-hospitals that are run by managers, who have primary financial interests," he said.

Oluwole, who added that strong opposition of MDCAN to the proposal for the repeal of University Teaching Hospital Act is not "an anti-JOHESU effort but an effort to ensure quality training of medical and other staff in teaching hospitals, improve and sustain quality of medical research and development of medicine, and provide quality services to patients."