Dr Jide Onyekwelu, immediate past secretary general of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has advised medical doctors to discharge their duties to the society with humility, love for humanity and fear of God.
Onyekwelu gave the advice during the grand reception organised for him by NMA, Anambra Chapter during the ongoing Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting.
Onyekwelu also announced his retirement from active NMA politics saying he would no longer run for any position but sit back and play advisory role to younger ones
“I have reached my pinnacle, I will now be an elder statesman, giving advice to people, especially the younger ones
‘I feel humbled by this reception, when I set out to serve the NMA as the secretary general, it was never with the view of having this type of reception,” he said.
Onyekwelu said doctors were indispensable because the nation’s healthcare delivery system would not work without them and called on the government to create an enabling environment for them to carry out their God-assigned role.
The former scribe called on governments to make national health insurance to cover everybody so that doctors could treat a patient without fear that they would not be paid.
“Doctors should also realise that they are human beings, and therefore cannot play God. It is God that gave us knowledge and wisdom to be able to save lives.
“Government should be able to provide us with an enabling environment to apply this gift in the service of humanity.
“We cannot do this work under the environment of insecurity, hardship or hunger. Doctors should be able to buy and eat the type of food they are recommending for patients.
“It has now been enshrined in our physicians’ oath that doctors should take care of themselves first so they can be able to take care of other people.,” he said.
Onyekwelu appealed to members of the public needing services of doctors to eschew intimidation, assault and indiscriminate arrest of doctors so they could do their job and derive joy and satisfaction from it.
“When a patient dies, his relations of patience would pounce on the doctor. Why will you kill a doctor because a patient died, God is the owner of life.
“We just released a young doctor from detention two days ago after spending 13 days in police cell because he list a patient
“If not addressed, our doctors will continue to emigrate as they are going now, and will put more pressure on the few of us around because the workload will increase, that will lead to exhaustion, and warn out syndrome.
“As patients overwhelm doctors, relations will start beating them and licking them up again for ‘mismanaging’ their patients,” he said.
