MDCN to compile lists of medical facilities

MEDICAL and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) has disclosed its readiness to compile the lists of Nigerian hospitals whether public or private versatile in the treatment of some terminal diseases to serve as a medical directory to those in need of such services.

  The development, apart from reducing the cost and stress associated with treatment of such ailments outside Nigeria, is expected to project the nation’s medical sector as one of the best in the world.

  According to the National Chairman of the MDCN Professor Jonathan Azubuike yesterday in Ilorin at a press conference heralding today’s official commissioning of the North-Central Zonal Office of the MDCN, many Nigerians are dying or suffering in silence due to lack of adequate information on health facilities in the country.

  Azubuike said: “We are compiling names of some Nigerian hospitals with enviable records treating some diseases. We want the public to know them and let them know of their facilities so that they don’t waste money and time travelling abroad over what can be handled in Nigeria.

  “For instance, we heard of a cardiac transplant successfully done at a private hospital in Oshogbo, Osun state. We heard of complex orthopaedic hips operations that are today successfully carried out in many private hospitals in Nigeria. We want that development.”

  Besides, Azubuike, in company of the Registrar of the council, Dr Abdulmumini Ibrahim, believed that lack of proper interpretation of a section of the regulations of the Council by some Chief Medical Directors (CMD) could not also be divorced from the seeming inadequate knowledge of how Nigerians could access quality health care system.

  A section of the regulations of the MDCN says, no medical breakthrough should be published without a prior publication in the medical journal of competent jurisdiction.  A breach of the law is viewed as an unethical conduct attracting some measures of penalties.

  But Azubuike said, if such publications were interpreted as information on the institution rather than advertisement about an individual it would never be viewed as an unethical conduct.

  According to him, “let us hide the identities of the doctors behind the medical feats but we can disclose the names of the concerned hospitals recording the feats. It is ethical to do so.”

  Speaking on the alternative to Orthodox Medicine, the MDCN boss said the council had received the directive of the Federal Government to look into the activities of the group to verify the acclaimed benefits it has for improved healthcare system. Already, two members of the alternative to medicine group had been appointed members of the MDCN.

  Azubuike who said the alternative to orthodox medicine should not be misinterpreted as traditional medicine, said the MDCN would study its efficacy before recommending same to Nigerians.

  He said the new zonal office in Ilorin was necessary to relieve members of the MDCN from hazard and stress of travelling to Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for official assignments. He justified the choice of Ilorin for the location of the office, citing sufficient medical hospitals and facilities within and around the town.