By Alltimepost.com
Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has said that the Federal and State Governments must join hands to fight quackery in the medical profession.
He spoke on Monday when the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, visited him in his office.
The Governor, who noted that the menace of quackery in the medical profession had become embarrassing, said the present government of President Muhammadu Buhari commands the desired confidence in the minds of Nigerians to do what is right and put the nation back on the right track.
“We must revisit the issue of regulation. The minimum requirement you must meet to establish a hospital and a private clinic. Clinics that ought to, at best, function as a referral center, to hear complaint and refer patients to the appropriate hospitals, now one doctor, a general doctor, performs the role of a gynecologist, neurologist, dentist, eye surgeon and all sorts of things and the result is that a lot of cases that could have been managed quietly get complicated before they are referred to the right hospitals,” he said.
Oshiomhole stressed the need between the federal and state governments to have a dialogue and determine how to review the laws in regard to minimum requirements to establish a private hospital and the limit to what a private hospital can do. “There are too many quacks who masquerade as doctors,” Oshiomhole remarked.
“You must have found it quite embarrassing that even in the Federal Ministry of Health, under the previous government, a fake doctor was functioning in the Ministry of Health, getting promotions and contributing to public policy formulation and it took couple of years before they found out he was never a doctor.
“It shows how rotten everything had become that somebody, not in my village, but in Abuja, was hiding and purporting to be a doctor at the Ministry of Health headquarters under the supervision of Professors of Health who have been ministers and Chief Medical Directors of the federation.”
He regretted that too many things have gone wrong,” but as I have always told our people, our party is not in power to lament but to learn the right lessons and to confront those issues squarely and build a new Nigeria from the ashes of the old and to give our people confidence and restore integrity to public institutions whether it is health care, education, and others.”
He believed that as a state authority with the support of the Federal Ministry of Health, the government can ensure that quacks are completely removed from the practice of medicine.
“Under President Buhari, our people are confident that Nigeria will overcome a lot of its challenges. It won’t be overnight, it will require a little bit of time. He alone can’t do it, the ministers alone can’t do it, but what we need is what I believe he possesses, namely; a leader the people can trust, a leadership that can inspire the people.”
“If the people don’t trust you, you can offer everything, they simply won’t believe you. Happily our president commands the trust and the respect not only of Nigerians but of the international community.”
Earlier, Dr. Osagie Ehanire said the purpose of his visit was to introduce himself formally to the Governor.
“The Governor was gracious enough to have fully supported my nomination and had invited me to a meeting we had in Abuja,” he recalled.
Dr. Ehanire said he looked forward to a strong relationship between the Ministry of Health and Edo State government.
He acknowledged prevailing challenges relating to the delivery of health services to the people of Nigeria, but said: “The President assumed power on promises which he is passionate to deliver.”
One of the challenges in the health sector, he continued, is the numerous strikes which have become a pain in the neck of Nigerians.
“We intend to start the process of constructive engagement of the workers, both consultants, resident doctors and other healthcare workers in a constant conversation so that it is not only when crisis arises that we are beginning to talk. We need to deepen our conversation all the time.”
