Help improve healthcare standard, Lagos Health Commissioner urges doctors

Dr. Idris presenting his address at the event

The Lagos State  Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris has urged the Association of Medical Doctors in the employment of Lagos State to play a role towards improving the standard of healthcare in their various facilities.

He made this call on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the Annual General Meeting/Scientific Conference of the Guild in Lagos with a theme: Restoring Order and Balance in Hierarchy of the Health Sector.

Dr. Idris charged members of the guild to make their facilities more competitive in the global healthcare space. Also, he stressed the need for the doctors to work together as a team, share knowledge and create collaborations and partnerships that will place Lagos on the map as a healthcare destination.

Commenting on the theme of the conference, Dr Idris called for collaborations amongs healthcare professionals. He noted that failures in inter-professional teamwork and communication have led directly to compromised patients care, staff distress, tension and inefficiency.

“They also make a substantial contribution to medical errors and are a contributory factor in 61% of sentinel events, Which is why the principle behind the movement toward patient centered care is growing,” he said.

“To me, there is no doubt that physicians are the clinical leaders of the healthcare organization. However, such leadership role must engender true professionalism and ethics, appropriate knowledge base, professional collaboration and team spirit,” he said.

In his speech, Chairman, Medical Guild, Lagos, Dr. Saliu Oseni said the Medical and Dental practitioners had remained the leader of the medical team in the Health Sector but noted that recent action of wanting to alter the hierarchy had created an imbalance in the health sector.

He pointed out that the intent is essentially for financial gain and subsequently misleading the patients/populace into having the impression that everybody in the hospital premises could administer treatment on them like doctors. He stated that such action had in many ways contributed to quackery both within and outside public Health facilities.

Dr. Oseni however lamented that non medical personnel have continued to try to own prescription right against professional ethics and standards.

“It is important to re-set the balance to correct the distorted hierarchy in the health sector with proper hierarchical distribution in the sector and correct the wrong impression of the existence of professional autonomy in the hospital setting as being peddled by some groups within the health sector and ensure the institution of appropriate clinical governance,” he stated.

In his remarks, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Government on Primary Healthcare, Dr. Olufemi Onanuga called for unity among doctors. He also called for the enlargement of medical curriculum to accommodate other courses for doctors so that they would  be versatile in other areas of life. Dr. Onanuga also advocated the involvement of doctors in politics.

Dr Idris (6th from left) with executive members of the Medical Guild