By NAN Reporters
North-west stakeholders in the health sector have suggested the introduction of mechanisms to check unprofessional conduct of health workers in the discharge of their duties.
In their inputs to a survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), respondents say unwholesome habits have been exposing patients to dangers, sometimes resulting to death.
They said that apart from unruly behaviour to patients and their relatives, sometimes health personnel extend same conduct to their colleagues, and in both cases, it had been the patients that were at the receiving end.
Majority of the respondents, however, attributed such conducts to stress, occasioned by dearth of personnel, with the attendant consequence of the aggression being transferred to patients.
The stakeholders concurred that for the aforementioned reason, governments at all levels shared part of the blame for failure to recruit enough staff in health facilities.
Patients themselves and their relations also received some ‘knocks’ in the survey, for their lack of approach while interacting with hospital staff, and failing to appreciate the workload of health personnel on duty.
Dr Murtala Dandare, the Chairman of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Kebbi, described negligence or unprofessional attitude to include failure to attend promptly to a patient requiring urgent attention when the practitioner is in a position to do so, as well as manifestation of incompetence in the assessment of a patient.
He said incorrect diagnosis of ailments, particularly when the clinical features are glaring that no reasonable skillful practitioner could have failed to notice them, also amounted to unprofessional conduct.
The chairman added that many patients experience harm in hospitals as a result of errors, saying that studies indicated under-reporting of diagnostic and medication errors.
He explained that poor attitude of medical workers could undermine the ability of the health system to provide quality care, and therefore recommended that all hospitals should assess attitude of their staff regularly.
In his contribution, Malam Nasiru Gwadangwaji, a Senior Nurse at Sir Yahaya Memorial Hospital in Birnin Kebbi, said “healthcare should be seen as a humanitarian service.
“But some health professionals put the blame on the dearth of healthcare professionals, thereby resulting in enormous stress on staff; they are always quick to add that the aggression is mostly due to the fact that there are too many patients and not enough medical staff to attend to them.”
On his part, Alhaji Atiku Kanya, a retired Nurse, observed that poor funding and infrastructure were the major bane of Nigeria’s healthcare, just as the case with other sectors.
He said “the poor attitude of health workers is a reflection of what is happening in the general society, even when they have been trained to show sympathy and make patients feel comfortable.”
Kanya noted that the condition of the health sector in the country had been further complicated by the insecurity. situation.
Alhaji Ahmad Tudundoki, community leader in Sokoto described as ‘worrisome’ the spate of negligence by some health workers, especially in rural areas.
According to him, experiencing poor health condition is like ‘getting close to death’, and that when a patient is further manhandled by an unprofessional health worker, the situation worsens.
A Nurse in Sokoto Specialists’ Hospital, Malam Ibrahim Gadaragare, said most times professional misconduct is the direct result of improper training received by the healthcare workers.
He noted that such poor attitudinal display in public hospitals had been on the increase, with patients always at the receiving end.
But Alhaji Nasir Mudassir, a Director with Sokoto State Ministry of Health, insisted that such misconducts did not always go unpunished, and therefore called for synergy among stakeholders in addressing the challenge.
Also, Dr Auwal Ahmad, Sokoto State Team Lead, Good Governance and Open Partnership Initiative, called for increased public enlightenment on attitudinal change among Nigerians, stressing that medical personnel were also part of the general environment that provided convenient breeding space for all forms of unwholesome behaviours.
In Kaduna, some health workers who spoke on the issue, said the authorities were to blame because ‘stress’ occasioned by dearth of personnel had always formed a substantial percentage of the cause of such aggressive behaviour.
They also said some policies of government did not help matters, especially the one that recommended that money be deposited by patients before being treated.
According to them, patients that are never attended to due to the inability to settle the recommended fees, always assume the workers are deliberating refusing to attend to them, even if such patients and their relatives are aware of the policy.
The NMA Chairman in the state, Dr Madaki Sheyin, said most medical staff, especially doctors, are over-stressed, working under extreme situation.
Another medical practitioner, Dr Nuhu Sule, harped on the same issue, adding that health personnel are also human, and likely to react to stress and strain situations.
“The ratio of doctor to patient is 1:10,000 , which is more than World Health Organisation’s benchmark of 1:1000,” he said.
According to him, the problems being faced in the health sector can be solved if the authorities concerned have the political will to do so, by simply employing more health workers.
Dr Sani Shaiubu of the state Ministry of Health argued that negligence had to do with individuals, adding that there would always be bad eggs among workers, but that did not apply to all of them.
In Kano, stakeholders were of the consensus that there was need to build the capacity of health workers in Nigeria to reshape their attitude toward patients.
Mr Usman Abdullahi, an administrative staff at Muhammadu Abdullahi Wase Hospital in Kano, said the unethical conduct cut across public and private health facilities, hence the need for total re-orientation of the psyche of medical workers.
He said there is need to make them understand that they are humanitarian workers and life savers, just as he acknowledged that are bad eggs in every profession.
A rural dweller, Mrs Uwani Musa from Butalawa area of Kura Local Government Area of the state, said such attitude displayed by medical staff discouraged people from visiting hospitals for treatment.
She said “we prefer to stay in our local communities and manage our ailments traditionally, rather than to go to a health facility and be insulted by some health workers, young enough to be our children and grand children.
Other respondents in Kano, however, blamed patients and their relatives for the impatience and, in some cases, rudeness to staff, a behaviour that often elicite similar unwholesome response from health workers.
Meanwhile, to curtail the poor attitude of health workers, the Public Relations Officer, Kano State Hospitals Management Board, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi, said the board had been on the watch-out for unprofessional conduct.
He cited a case of such negligence in one of the public facilities recently, adding that the board did not hesitate to suspend the culprit.
In Zamfara, Dr Mannir Bature, the immediate-past Chairman of NMA in the state, told NAN that cases of unprofessional conduct by health workers had reduced as against what obtained in the past.
“We do not tolerate unwholesome conduct in the medical field because we deal with lives; although there are still reported cases of unprofessional behaviour by healthcare workers toward patients, such cases are not rampant like what obtained in the past”, he said.
Mrs Halimat Muhammad, a Community Health Worker in Gusau said unprofessional attitude among health workers is taking its toll even among the practitioners themselves, affecting relationships.
She said “in some hospitals, sometimes there is no synergy between nurses and doctors; some nurses feel arrogant to obey medical doctors’ instructions on how to handle some cases, just as doctors sometimes also exhibit attitude of superiority complex over the nurses.
“The patient is always at the receiving end; this attitude is noticed mostly in public facilities,” Muhammad said.
Also in Katsina State, stakeholders in the health sector attributed the unprofessional attitude of medical workers in public hospitals to pressure of work.
Dr Muhammad Mubarak of AJS Hospital and Mrs Munirat Makama, a Nurse with General Hospital, Batsari, explained that under-staffing in public hospitals contribute a lot to the exhibition of poor attitude.
..(NAN)
