Revisiting your investigation
of UCH
By Michael Okekearu
Saturday, July 28, 2007
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•Obasanjo
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Your investigative piece of June 23, on the mess in the
University College Ibadan made an interesting reading. My
own perspective of that saga is different. The UCH story represents
an interplay of forces between corruption on the one hand
and the ugly side of privatisation on the other hand.
When ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo made privatisation and
deregulation the major thrust of his economic policy, many
knowledgeable people had cautioned him on the consequences
of wholesale privatization in a fragile economy like ours.
Today, if there is any mystery surrounding privatization,
the health sector as well as the downstream sector of Nigeria’s
petroleum industry have rubbished it. It is an open secret
that that policy was a flop. Even die-hard follwers of Obasanjo
including Sen. Ahmadu Ali acknowledged this fact recently.
You would recall that recently, Transparency Initiative, an
NGO undertook a study that borders on corruption or perception
of it in our ministries and parastatals. It gave the health
sector a clean bill. But that notwithstanding, the health
sector is still bedeviled by its own version of corruption
and this includes the abuse of fund like the DRF, the Out-Of-Stock
syndrome (OS) as well as Absent Without Leave (AWOL).
Now back to the Drug Revolving Fund (DRF). The DRF could be
likened to the PTDF fund in the hey days of the Obasanjo’s
regime. It is usually obscure from the scrutiny of the body
charged with its oversight and this has been largely responsible
for the abuse to which the fund has been subjected to. In
health circles, the DRF is seen as a cash-cow that yields
endless quantities of money at the stroke of a finger. Once
a new Chief Medical Director is appointed in a hospital, the
hawks within usually introduce him to the fund and immediately,
a ratio for sharing the proceeds is created. Lack of satisfaction
in the sharing ratio often leads to a ‘coup’ by
a superior officer and this often leads to parting of ways
with its attendant back-stabing as is apparent in the UCH
saga.
The OS syndrome which appears to be the biggest culprit in
the corruption race in our hospitals today occurs not for
lack of expertise on the side of the supervising pharmacist
neither is it due to lack of finance. It is usually a well
schemed plot whereby the supervising pharmacist intentionally
allows his stock of essential drugs to run dry thereby leading
to acute shortage of these drugs with its attendant chaos.
Meanwhile, while the confusion lasts, the lacking drugs are
found easily in nearby hamlets usually operated by friends
and fronts of the pharmacist. Going by the account of Saturday
Sun, it would be extremely difficult to extricate the Chief
Medical Director (CMD) of UCH from the mess of abuse of due
process. On the surface, it appears as if the CMD did a coup
that overthrew the Director of Pharmaceutical Services thus
leading to the confusion in UCH.
Nonetheless, if I were the Minister of Health, I would give
Prof. Ilesanmi a pat on the back the controversy notwithstanding.
He has demonstrated uncommon courage that is lacking among
CMD’s of tertiary medical institutions. The hospital
setting is a very special one as there is no second chance.
Most times a second wasted often leads to serious morbidity
and even death. I have had the misfortune of losing a friend
some few years back due to this anomaly.
My late friend was involved in a ghastly motor accident that
traumatised his skull. And while the neuro-surgeons were in
theatre waiting for the results of the blood chemistry in
order to commence surgery, the laboratory of the teaching
hospital in question could not run the simple test. I had
to travel over all over the place looking for where to run
the test. And by the time I was back, my friend was already
gone. The Prof. appears to have been caught in a delicate
web trying to balance efficiency and privatization. While
trying to improve the efficiency of UCH, he had stepped on
both small and big toes.
But come to think of it, Prof. should not be blamed for his
actions rather the federal government should take the blame.
Since the deregulation of the health sector by virtue of reduced
funding, most CMD’s have been under immense pressure
to improve on their internally generated revenues. This has
led to the sky-rocketing of prices of healthcare services
in Nigeria.
For instance, to undergo a very common surgery like caesarean
section in Nigeria, one has to keep at least N100,000. Other
equally common surgeries like appendesectomy and herniorrhapy
are beyond the reach of many Nigerians. And with over seventy
percent of the populace living below the poverty line, we
are already confirming the fears of our developmental partners
that we might be far from achieving the Millenium Develpment
Goals by 2015.
My greatest worry is the irony that the political class responsible
for this mess travel abroad when they catch an innocous ailment
like common cold. The federal government must be told without
equivocation that there is no alternative to full funding
of the health sector especially in an impoverished country
like ours. The controversy surrounding the privatisation/outsourcing
of the various units in UCH might perhaps be another window
of opportunity for the federal government to re-examine the
whole concept of privatisation and deregulation especially
in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry and other
areas where it has caused large-scale damages.
As I make to end this piece, it must be stated categorically
that outsourcing is only a short-term solution to the problem
of corruption in this UCH saga and nay other areas of our
national life. The long-term solution lies on a national rebirth
which can only happen when we have a 'clean' president who
would lead by example : Or a vibrant judiciary that would
ensure that politicians who get to offices through the back
door are kicked out on time.
The UCH is a fragile piece of hope in a country threatened
by corruption. All that needs to be done is for the federal
government to increase its funding of the health sector and
the governing board of UCH to live up to its responsibility
by ensuring that any or all of Prof. Ilesanmi's actions do
not fail the corruption litmus test.
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