Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has noted that public doctors in the country spend more time on industrial action than on their duty post, noting that such disposition is treasonable in other climes.
The former Labour leader made this assertion yesterday during the formal commissioning of Alliance Hospital, a multi specialty hospital in Abuja, where he observed that many things have gone wrong in the Nigerian environment.
Noting that doctors spend more time on strike than they spend in the theatre as every grievance is always settled with a strike, he said, “Many things have to change. It’s not just a factor of equipment. If the human factor and orientation is inappropriate, facilities and equipment cannot translate to good health outcomes.”
Oshiomhole, who harped on the need for doctors to reinvent their Hippocratic oath, maintained that it is unacceptable that Nigerian doctors go on strike over minor issues.
He called for an overhaul of the reward system in the public service, saying, “There is another issue we need to have a conversation on. The compensation system in our public service does not reward merit. A lazy doctor and a competent, excellent doctor with a passion for his job earn the same pay. And if you have such a generalised system of compensation that does not have any connection between effort and reward, we are going to continue to have this distortion.”
The Governor said there should be a management system where doctors can be paid not on the basis of CONTIS or HATISS that the federal government has negotiated and imposed on state governments so that two doctors of the same qualification need not go home with the same pay if one works harder than the other.
“Government mustn’t lament the behavior of her people, rather it should do something to influence that behavior,” he stated.
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