Leeway to industrial harmony in health sector, by MDCAN

CONCERNED about the objections to aspects of the Yayale Ahmed Presidential Committee of Experts on Professional Relationships in the Public sector, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), has urged health workers to have a rethink.

    MDCAN said in Abuja yesterday that the report, if implemented, would bring relative peace to the health sector.

    President of the Association, Steven Oluwole, particularly tasked the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) to put aside its reservations about some of the recommendations as posited in the document and work with doctors to ensure harmony in the sector.

   Oduwole said MDCAN was available to parley with JOHESU to achieve peaceful and healthy professional co-existence in the hospitals.

    A statement from MDCAN read: “The Yayale Ahmed Committee was set up to identify the causes of the acrimony among public health workers and recommend measures that will assist the government in ensuring a harmonious work relationship among the various categories of Public Health workers in the best interest of the citizens.

    “Unfortunately JOHESU, the Joint Health Sector Unions, is again playing the victim strategy to disparage the Committee members and cast doubts on their impartiality.”

     Oduwole noted how JOHESU had allegedly endorsed the composition of the Yayale Ahmed Committee, which had approximately 20 per cent medical doctor members.

     He tasked JOHESU to : “Seek enhancement of remuneration for its members through legitimate labour law processes rather than usurpation of roles and assumptions of titular positions that will distort the command structure of the health services; accept their defined roles in the hospitals as practised in Health Institutions visited by Yayale Ahmed Committee; encourage their members in the Laboratory Services to work under the leadership of medical doctors as recommended by Yayale Ahmed Committee.”

      He also asked JOHESU to “encourage their members in the Laboratory Services to work under the leadership of medical doctors as recommended by Yayale Ahmed Committee; withdraw court cases that Yayale Ahmed findings have rendered obsolete; stop all acts of hooliganism and vandalism.”

     The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) this week met and deliberated on the state of health care delivery in the country, the National Health Act, the Presidential Committee of Experts On Inter-Professional Relationships in The Public Health Sector (Yayale Ahmed Committee) Report, Boko Haram Insurgency, and the 2015 Elections.

      In a communiqué issued at the end of a three day deliberation, the committee came up with some resolutions and observations.

     The committee also lamented the state of the healthcare delivery in the country.

     MDAN observed what it described as the less than salutary state of health care delivery in Nigeria, stressing how the sector has been ‘assaulted’ in the  past six months from strikes by several unions in the health services.

    The Association noted: “Unfortunately the objectives of the strikes were not to improve or develop service delivery.”

   A communiqué issued after the meeting noted, “While the meeting of Mr President Goodluck Jonathan with JOHESU, which led to the suspension of the strike is welcoming and appropriate, it is very disturbing that Mr. President appears to appease JOHESU to further subject the fundamental findings of Yayale Ahmed Committee to further debate.

    “Yayale Ahmed Committee was not set up to advance, enshrine, or endorse the manifesto and desires of any Union, or translate the demands of JOHESU to Government white paper. Many of the absurdities of JOHESU demands, which were observed by the Committee to be unfounded, were rejected in the Report.”

     It went on: “Mr. President should not diminish his resolve to bring an end to the un- healthy rivalry in the health services. Mr. President should ignore the cacophony of threats and admit the fun-ornamental findings of the Committee. The goal to restore sanity to the health services should not be sacrificed on the altar of expediency, or political correctness.”

     The body also commended government for signing the National Health Act.

    It stressed: “MDCAN again commends the enactment of the National Health Act. While there are still areas of concern, there is the need to proceed to full implementation and recognition of areas that require amendments.

Full implementation should commence without further delay.

     On the Yayale report, MDCAN noted further: “The Yayale Ahmed Committee was set up to identify the causes of the acrimony among public health workers and recommend measures that will assist the government in ensuring a harmonious work relationship among the various categories of Public Health workers in the best interest of the citizens. Unfortunately JOHESU, the Joint Health Sector Unions, is again playing the victim strategy to disparage the Committee members and cast doubts on their impartiality.

    “JOHESU endorsed the composition of Yayale Ahmed Committee, which had approximately 20 % medical doctor members. JOHESU’s conspiratorial theories of the basis for the recommendations of the Committee are inexplicable. JOHESU’s constant reference to phantom health services of other climes ignores the obvious fact that the Committee’s recommendations were based on findings of the structure of health services of Countries that it visited.

    “JOHESU should eek enhancement of remuneration for its members through legitimate labour law processes rather than usurpation of roles and assumptions of titular positions that will distort the command structure of the health services.

    “They should accept their defined roles in the hospitals as practised in Health Institutions visited by Yayale Ahmed Committee and encourage their members in the Laboratory Services to work under the leadership of medical doctors as recommended by Yayale Ahmed Committee. The Association should withdraw court cases that Yayale Ahmed findings have rendered obso lete.

    In a protest to the report by  Yayale Ahmed Presidential Committee of Experts on Professional Relationships in the Public sector, JOHESU and its allied groups had written to President Goodluck Jonathan to  disassociate themselves from  the report, describing it as  “less than credible”.