The Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has disclosed that inter-professional rivalry in health sector is having negative impacts on the quality of health care services in Nigeria.
The minister made the assertion on Tuesday at Federal School of Medical Laboratory, Jos, Plateau State, where he inaugurated new projects, inducted graduands and matriculated others.
Ehanire said that Inter-professional rivalry in hospitals gets worse every day and this affects health delivery chain and is certainly hurting he country’s quest for effective health care delivery.
He stressed that all professionals in health sector were mutually dependent, as such they must learn to work together, support and respect each other.
“We are not rivals, we are colleagues and must always be together. If we fight, the patients will suffer, healthcare delivery will suffer, and everyone will suffer.
“I want to call for a change in this regard, I want to also emphasise the need for every professional to respect the other and never see any health worker as inferior,” he said.
Ehanire, challenged health professionals to de-emphasise personal gains in discharge of their duties, saying that their job was a divine call to serve humanity.
He said although paucity of funds was affecting service delivery, it was a challenge all public servants must face squarely and attributed the problem to general drop in oil prices, production, revenue.
The minister decried Nigeria’s obsession with imported items, saying that the situation had affected local producers, forcing many industries to fold up.
“Not long ago, I was told that the country pends an average of 500 million dollars daily to import rice; we cannot grow as a nation if we continue to depend on rice importation instead of producing,” he said.
Ehanire said that Nigerians must strive to feed themselves by producing food they require, stressing that this would create jobs and reduce destitution in the country.
“Personally, people send messages to beg for money, food and other basics. That situation will not be there if there are jobs that will make them self-sufficient,” he said.
The minister said that government was opening up more industries so that more people would be employed,urging youths to work harder, make more sacrifices and be positive toward a better and more prosperous Nigeria.
Enahire emphasised need for prudent use of available resources, with transparency as watchword, adding that Nigerians must avoid wastes; as the country cannot afford the luxury.
The health minister challenged the graduands to be proud of their calling as laboratory officers, stressing that their profession was key to health surveillance and tracking deadly diseases like Ebola and Lassa Fever.
In his speech, the school’s Provost , Dr Sunday Etukudoh, said that the institution, established in 1958, was still awaiting passage of bill for an Act establishing it.
“The enactment of the Act will strengthen the capacity to enhance national and international collaborations and educational exchange programmes with accredited institutions in the world,” he explained.
He said that legal framework would empower the school to access money from TETFUND for infrastructure development and also regretted that the school had remained on a temporary site for 62 years, adding that Plateau Government, owners of the temporary site, had given it notice to quit since 2013.
Etukudoh, therefore, called for more urgent support to construct hostels, an assembly hall and a school auditorium, as well as provide electricity and water to the permanent site.
“We want to move in the second week of November and shall require intervention funds from the Plateau and federal governments to make that possible,” he said.
The 26 graduands were inducted into the profession, while 70 new intakes were matriculated.
