Harmonization of Health Salary Structure in Nigeria

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Harmonization of Health Salary Structure in Nigeria

Unread post by Kunle Emmanuel »

I say yes to harmonization of health salary structure in Nigeria, irrespective of threats from certain professionals.


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In a hospital set up, a Doctor cannot claim to be more important than a Nurse, a Nurse cannot claim superiority over a Pharmacist, a Pharmacist cannot claim superiority over a Lab scientist, a Lab scientist cannot claim superiority over a Radiographer.

A Radiographer cannot claim superiority over a Mortician, a Mortician cannot claim superiority over a Dietician, a Dietician cannot claim superiority over a Social worker, a Social worker cannot claim superiority over a Physiotherapist, a Physiotherapist cannot claim superiority over the Environmental officer.

An Environmental officer cannot claim superiority over a Health Educator, a Health Educator cannot claim superiority over a horticulturalist that provides aesthetic values while a Horticulturalist cannot claim superiority over a Laundry man, a Laundry man cannot claim superiority over a Record officer.....and so on and so forth to list a few of the hospital staff because each profession is distinct and unique in it's orientation, education and services offered.

Don't forget that I've not even mentioned those in the Administration and Finance including the Maintenance Engineers of the different equipment that are so diverse as the few listed above.

Health is one big family set up and neither can do without the other ; as all profession have independent, interdependent and dependent roles and responsibilities.

In each of these professions, there are also specialists who cannot claim superiority over other specialists. It's a matter of choice and these professionals influence the patient one way or the other right from the time the patient enters the hospital premises till discharge and even at the home environment.

Health is a team business!

Why should I object to a Cleaner earning the same salary as mine, a Nurse? Is it my Father's money? Is the work of a Cleaner not as important as mine in the hospital? Let me give you an analogy, if say for example, all the wastes generated in the hospital are not removed for instance, everyone of us, including those who believed that "they are born to rule" in the hospital environment may die of cholera, pollution or what have you, so how do you quantify or rate the role and responsibilities of a Cleaner?

Is these variables not the reason why some will gladly take up some jobs while other jobs are rejected ; yet these so-called skillful people go to London or USA to remove wastes from homes without any qualms yet believes such jobs are beneath them here!

Why? Because the pay is good over there! So what they are saying in essence is that if the pay is good, there is no big deal in dignity once it is done elsewhere? Right? How crazy do we get with this colonial mentality?

THE POLITICS OF NIGERIA EDUCATION SYSTEM

Some members of the health team believe they deserve higher pay because they spend longer time in the school? But I ask you, does the number of years make them better professionals than those that spend less years outside our shores!

Who decides the number of years needed here?

The school cabals!

Take a look at my Journey as a Nurse in Nigeria

I spent 9 years to obtain my first four diplomas in Nursing, another PGD for one year and two years for an allied Master's course. Then our leaders decided it is Bachelor's of Science in Nursing or nothing for me to be relevant in my field.

When I and others took up the courage to earn it, we were told that we must spend 5 good years to obtain it! The same years that a secondary school student uses.

Why are they doing that?

It is to discourage you so that their children sent to use less years overseas can be brought back to start at the top over you!

Let's calculate the years spent in the different schools of Nursing.That is 5years plus10years, making 15 years! The alleged foremost university in Southwest Nigeria make sure you spend four years post BNSc to acquire an MNSc, the same Masters in Nursing Science that all you spend in school in South Africa is 9months! How ludicrous do they get?

If it is not Babcock University that came up with a rescue programme of 2 years MNSc programme, the so called cabals will not reduce their 4years to 2 years!

So to acquire Master's in Nursing Science, it costs you some 20years if you're a peasant's daughter like me who cannot go overseas to spend just 4 or 5 years for same qualification and by the time you settled down to be more useful in your profession, your retirement comes in and all knowledge acquired becomes useless with the exception of those who choose to go outside our shores who are made relevant there!

If you choose to run a maternity home here because of your passion for the job and have no godfather, you have Hefama, Traditionalists, double taxation, lawma, law and occupational enforcement agents, manipulative lawyers, junk journalists, machinations of other professionals in the health sector, government fluctuating policies and a host of others to contend with yet TBAs and faith based clinics practice without molestation and they cry about high indices?

How hypocritical can people get?


A lot of our intelligent Nurse Leaders found themselves in this quandary!

That is a tip of the iceberg of Nigeria's health education system of the cabals who keep a stranglehold on the system. Who will liberate the pupils? I doubt in our time, but maybe in the generation to come!

Did I tell you that you're made to spend seven good years after obtaining the Bachelor's of Nursing Science before you're allowed to move into the Directorate level by the Establishment cabals?

In Lagos State, I must say special thanks to our amiable and labour friendly Governor Ambode's liberation policies ; otherwise a lot will not smell that till they retire and all their efforts would have been wasted and their vision aborted!

That's Nigeria for you! So I ask again, does the number of years spent in schools make the individual a better professional?
Maybe, Maybe not!

The real issues here is that health care is dynamic, it's not static, most of the learning is on the job! It is more of a practical thing and the mode of application changes all the time so the number of years spent in school is not only ridiculous, unnecessary but callous in it's entirety!!!

Do you know that despite the 9years of Medical School in Nigeria, you simply have to begin Medical School again in UK and USA if you want to practice there! Why? Because they don't believe in our education system!

We don't believe in them either! The degree of our medical tourism tell them all they need to know, particularly when we can't even treat ear infection here and misdiagnose cancer for Asthma as in Gani's case despite passing through over ten Doctors and others more like this, then we are unreliable.

Besides our indices are almost the highest in the world! Yet if allowed, the cabals will keep our children in Medical school for higher years as it's being advocated for now to prove superiority of a course over the others despite the fact that they can't exist on their own!

It is laughable what the young doctors are made to go through these days. They are made to do dressing, give health talk, serve medications, palpate pregnant women, do vitals, give episiotomy, run IV lines, learn nursing diagnosis and what have you.... things which all hitherto were Nursing duties ; to show that they are the leaders of everyone in the hospital while their core duties are left undone. A more of "jack of all trades and masters of none?"

You can't be the doctor and the Nurse at the same time however hard you try, that's the simple truth!

A lot of brilliant students who wish to read Medicine are given microbiology, biochemistry, physics, chemistry, Physiotherapy etc because their parents do not belong to the cabals while their children are given their choice courses which cannot happen in other climate. These same children have to come back and begin again if they really desire Medicine.

So what do we have?

We have a lot of willing and intelligent students who never made medical schools and a lot of unwilling students who are forced to read medicine because they are their children and those of their cronies. In this instance, does the number of years spent in the school make a better physician?

Your answer is as good as mine!

If you doubt me, go and ask the best graduating Medical student set 2016 of a university in Ogun State, he will tell you that he first of all earn an HND, a BSC before he was admitted for Medicine which was his first choice all along.

He was weeping by the time he finished narrating all the years it took him to acquire a bachelor's of Medicine and Surgery! Must we do that to our children and to prove what?

Look at all the huddles place in the path of our young ones, that is if you can afford to pay the astronomical fees created by those who enjoyed free educational system of the Awolowo era despite pretending to be an Awoist and progressive. In the next few years we will be having educated parents who cannot send their children to schools despite being the children of illiterates!

Yet they pegged employment age at 25years when they ensure that the pupils don't finish until 30 years of age! We are simply destroying our youths and what they could offer by keeping them perpetually in schools to prove a point!

My Opinion

If you choose to spend 15 years to acquire an MBBS, or 10 years to earn a BNSc it is your prerogative. Spend all your youthful years needlessly in the school for all I care but in reality, all personnel in the hospital set up are equally important, equally trained to be relevant and equally exposed to the same hazard and thus deserve better pay packages.

For these reasons and many more that cannot be highlighted here, I say YES TO HARMONIZATION OF SALARIES OF THE HEALTH SYSTEM!


Good morning all.

Written by Lateef Yusuf Mary (LASUTH)
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Re: Harmonization of Health Salary Structure in Nigeria

Unread post by Kunle Emmanuel »

Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists made this Rejoinder to NMA Publication on Healthcare Workers Salaries Harmonization


RE: NMA Rejects Planned Harmonisation of Health Workers Salaries


The story captioned above in the Guardian Newspaper Online refers. Ordinarily, the Association of hospital and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria (AHAPN) does not delight in joining issues with sister associations in the healthcare sector just for the fun of it, but we are constrained to put the records straight as a result of certain misinformation and deliberate, but veiled falsehood contained in the said publication. the NMA alleged among other things that: "although health workers.faced many hazards in the discharge of their ditties, their output could not be compared to doctors who performed the hulk of the medical services". Nothing can be further from the truth.

Every profession in the healthcare sector has its scheme of service which clearly stipulates job description and corresponding remuneration as approved by the relevant regulatory agencies. The NMA cannot continue to undermine and denigrate other professionals in the health sector. by virtue of the privileges her members enjoy as ministers of health and headship of federal governmental agencies in the health sector, including federal tertiary health institutions.

It is imperative to make it known to the Nigerian public that the Nigerian Medical Doctors are responsible for the rot in our healthcare delivery system. Her members who are the Chief Medical Directors/MDs are the major instruments of decadence as they encourage corrupt practices, frank embezzlement and misappropriation of the funds made available for our healthcare system. The recent discoveries of misappropriation and outright theft of the funds made available by GAVI Foundation is a pointer to this. The current arraignment of the CMD of UCTH by EFCC is another example. There arc many more.

Healthcare delivery worldwide is a collaborative process, with the patient as the centre of attraction. Every professional has a role to play to ensure optinium patient care. There is nothing fantastic about Nigeria's healthcare sector today under the leadership by coercion of NMA. It is an open secret that our healthcare sector is in shambles today, due largely to *undue territoriality that is the hallmark of Nigerian doctors as against the need to strengthen professionalism.

In developed societies; every health professional has a defined role to play in the delivery of healthcare. The medical doctor by virtue of his training makes a diagnosis, the pharmacist makes drugs available following the principle of rational drug therapy and pharmaceutical care, the medical laboratory scientist works hard to ensure laboratory tests are carried out to aid diagnosis. There is also a role for dieticians, physiotherapists and others, all collaborating for optimum patient care and better patient outcomes, in line with international best practice

The NMA also alleged that 'medical doctors are highly skilled and few in the country, the cut-off mark for medical students is 280 and above'. Again we make bold to say that virtually every professional in the healthsector, especially the pharmacist is highly skilled. Pharmacists are even fewer than the medical doctors (compare 40,000 doctors to 20,000 pharmacists) because of the extensive and rigorous training we undergo. We state emphatically that cut-off mark is only a relative method of assessing level of intelligence or academic crilliance and that is why it varies from year to year and from school to school. The true yardstick for measuring intelligence remains intelligent Quotient (IQ) Test, which remains constant. Some pharmacy schools have same, lower or higher cut-off marks than medicine. Cut of mark is not a guide or indicator of who will be a successful professional. It is easier to change course from pharmacy or any other science to medicine than to change to pharmacy - only the best and the toughest survive pharmacy training.

The Nigerian Medical doctors and especially the NMA have an over bloated ego about their importance, yet the Nigerian Healthcare system is near comatose. Elsewhere in the world, including African countries, all healthcare workers are accorded their due respect by all. Just recently in Ghana, their medical association caller out doctors on strike to protest whatever, the Ghananian government gave them a deadline to resume work or be replaced with Asian trained doctors. Of course the doctors capitulated and went back to work without haveing their demands met. Were it to be in Nigeria, such issue would have been handled with kid's glove

We say it is high time the Nigeian government calls the bluff of NMA, which has continued to abuse the privileges accorded her over the years with impunity. The rest of the world is forging ahead to render excellent medical practice and the NMA had better wake up from her slumber or be left behind.
Else where in the world, especially in advanced climes where health indices are very near ideal like in the USA, Canada, Scandinavian countries and even in Burundi here in Africa, consultant nurse prescribers and consultant clinical pharmacist prescribers are the order of the day

We at AHAPN are in support of the planned harmonization of healthcare workers salaries. This harmonization should be based on the outcome of a job evaluation committee report of 2008 by the Federal ministry of health, federal ministry of labour and National salaries income and wages commission. We strongly believe that this will be one sure panacea for peace in the healthcare sector in Nigeria. Professionals should be remuneerated based on actual input to patient care and not by how much noise is made by their parent bodies. The federal government should go a step further and rotate leadership of the federal ministry of health and Federal tertiary health institutions among all qualified professionals in the health sector. This will engender healthy competition among the healthcare team for the overall good of Nigerian patients.

Enough is Enough
Pharm Martins Oyewole
National Chairman AHAPN
Pharm Jelili Kilani
National Secretary
Together We Light Up The Profession one candle at a time.
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