‘Why Only Medical Doctors Should Not Be Appointed As Health Ministers’
The Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to look beyond medical doctors and appoint technocrats in health administration as ministers of Health in his second tenure.
MHWUN national president, Josiah Biobelemoye, who stated this yesterday, at the Union’s 10th National Delegates Conference in Abuja, said this will reduce the friction between doctors and other professionals in the health sector.
According to him, “What has destroyed the health system in Nigeria is the government’s mistake of handing over the management of the health system to a powerful minority of the health team to the exclusion of the large majority of the team members.
“When a minister of Health, minister of state for Health and until recently permanent secretary of Health and almost all departments are managed by one profession to the exclusion of other professionals in the health care delivery system, there can be no harmony; turbulence and inefficiency shall continue to thrive.’’
“As an immediate action to put confidence in Nigerians, the appointment of ministers of Health must not necessarily be to only health professionals in order to halt politics of exclusion that has taken tap roots in the ministry.
“We believe the appointment of non-health professionals as ministers, or the mixing of appointments of both doctors and other health professionals as ministers will boost the confidence of stakeholders that this present administration has come to terms with the problems of the sector and is determined to proffer solutions to them.”
