By David-Chyddy Eleke
In a country like Nigeria where japa (emigration) has become the new in-thing for all professionals and even non professionals, some of us who have no ambition whatsoever to leave Nigeria but stay behind and contribute in our own little way deserve to be praised and not vilified. It is moreso for medical practitioners who are highly sought after overseas.
As a journalist who constantly covers the activities of the presidential candidate of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Peter Obi who has a strong knack for donating to better health education in Nigeria and has crisscrossed the entire country donating humongous amounts to nursing colleges, I know that at his level of exposure, he has always described nursing students during speeches as global citizens. His contention is that medical officers are so highly sought after in developed climes that a medical personnel has no reason remaining in Nigeria and being treated shabbily. In one of our visits to a medical college, Peter Obi openly advised nursing students not to feel discouraged if they ever feel the need to travel out to seek greener pastures.
Obi even told the story of his former personal assistant, Mr Michael-Jude Nwaolisa who by the way is a colleague and friend. Obi said since Michael-Jude left, he has not found anyone to replace him, adding that he left after he married a nurse who later emigrated and then my friend joined him. He even told federal government not to stop nurses who want to travel abroad if they do not want to fix the country’s health sector and make it attractive.
True to Peter Obi’s words, medical personnel from Nigeria are emigrating in droves, almost on a daily basis, leaving Nigeria healthcare system with less and less personnel.
Today, The national doctor-to-patient ratio in Nigeria stands at roughly 1 doctor to 3,500 to 9,000 people (about 2.9 to 3.9 doctors per 10,000 population), which is far below the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended standard of 1 doctor to 600 people (17 per 10,000).
Now to my topic. On Friday, I received a call from the Anambra State Commissioner for Health to join in a facility tour of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku Awka. The tour was to ascertain the truth about a remark made by a former staff of the hospital, Dr Charles Kenechukwu Ojukwu, who went on a podcast to claim that the hospital stinks, and that the potholes on roads in the hospital were enough to send a patient being ferried into the hospital into coma. He claimed that the Solution Trauma Centre built by the Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo was a hollow building devoid of equipment.
I joined the tour and can confidently say after assessing the facility that the internal roads in the university were neither bad, nor were the wards smelling. The Solution Trauma Centre was also fully equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and awaiting commissioning and opening to the public, contrary to Ojukwu ‘stop claims.
As journalists, we conducted interviews and Dr Amaechi Nwachukwu the chairman of Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), COOUTH chapter was among those interviewed, and he expressed delight about the state of the university, contrary to what Dr Ojukwu claimed.
It was a surprise that of all the interviews by commissioner for health, Dr Afam Obidike, the CMD of COOUTH, Dr Maureen Umeakuewulu and several other staff, Dr Ojukwu again went on the internet, singling out Nwachukwu for attacks, claiming that Nwachukwu was bitter because he was outsmarted by Prof Soludo who dumped him and his ambition to become the CMD, and went out of his way to appoint Dr Umeakuewulu.
These personal attacks leave a lot to be imagined. It beggers the question – does Charles Kenechukwu Ojukwu have an axe to grind with Amaechi Nwachukwu? How come he ignored the condemnation of his interview by the commissioner, the CMD and several others who have written and condemned his erroneous remarks on the podcast to single out Nwachukwu?
Dr Amaechi Nwachukwu, a foremost consultant in the hospital and a well known orthopaedic surgeon in Nigeria is not new to journalists. He is a unionist from his university days at University College Hospital, Ibadan, and not new to struggles associated with unionism. Severally, he has fought Anambra State government and past management of COOUTH, not for personal gains but to ensure that the conditions of the hospital were improved and also the welfare of workers in the hospital.
Severally, he has issued ultimatum to the state government and also declared strike, leading other consultants to down tools, just to force government to improve the condition of the hospital. He has also been victimized by previous managements to the point of being sacked too. That is how hard he has fought and the bruises he has borne.
From every information available, Dr Ojukwu was a former staff of the hospital who has already followed the japa trend and emigrated to the UK to seek better life. His interview on the podcast was based on previous knowledge he had of the hospital, but never bothered to update his knowledge before going to the media.
In truth, investigations have shown that the hospital was truly in bad shape as described by Ojukwu, but surprisingly, when the hospital was in the shape described, Ojukwu was still in the hospital and was in bed with those who kept it down. He was a man-friday of the management of the university at that time, and while Nwachukwu and his team were fighting to improve the condition of the hospital, Ojukwu was defending it at the detriment of the entire public. Records of Dr Nwachukwu’s interviews with the press over the deplorable state of the university at that time are still on the internet.
What Dr Ojukwu did not know was that after he emigrated, and the past management that he supported exited, and the new management in collaboration with the state government have fixed the rot in the hospital, to the credit of patriots like Dr Amaechi Nwachukwu who stood their ground. If anyone still wished that Nwachukwu and his team would continue to fight government and management of the hospital, they must be out of their minds.
Now, back to japa. It should be considered more stately and praiseworthy for someone who practices a lucrative and well sought after profession like medicine where Dr Nwachukwu plays prominently to ignore emigration opportunities, seeking to stay behind instead and fix the rot within, while it should be deemed cowardly for those who throw in the towel, japaed to foreign countries that had already been built by others, instead of staying behind to fix their God-given country.
That is why we should praise medical professionals like Amaechi Nwachukwu who choose to remain in Nigeria to fight for a better country even when he has the opportunity to leave abound. He should indeed be rated higher than those who cowardly threw in the towel like Ojukwu and quickly japaed to a country already built on the sweat of other men. Dr Amaechi Nwachukwu deserves praise not vilification. If he has the ambition of being a CMD, it must be known that there is nothing wrong in being ambitious. If Nwachukwu truly feels pained as described by Ojukwu, he would rather be fighting the new management of COOUTH and also discrediting Governor Chukwuma Soludo instead of praising his strides in the hospital.
David-Chyddy Eleke in a journalist and co-publisher of THE RAZOR Newspaper
