Dr Yau Gagarawa, the Ameer, Muslim Umaraah of the National Hospital Abuja (NHA) has urged the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) to assist the government in the formulation of good policies in the medical profession.
The ameer (Leader) made the call on Friday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) after the Jumaat prayer in celebration of the NMA-FCT 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Gagarawa who is also a general surgeon by profession, praised the NMA, adding that it had been playing a good role in improving the health of the nation.
He said that the area he wanted the association to focus on was to help the government to get better policies that would make patient and health workers friendly.
He said that the two issues were long time overdue, stressing that implementing such idea would turn around the face of the healthcare system in the country.
“What I mean by being patient-friendly is, you could see that the health sector where the health system exist is not very friendly to the people who come to access its services.
“Accessing the healthcare services is very difficult financially, the procedures, the bureaucratic bottleneck is sometimes difficult and government should look into all these challenges and simplify them.
“The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) which covers the medical bills of all workers, or supposed to cover the medical bills in the country, is not being used optimally.
“Government should look into that and the NMA should advise the government on the direction to go about the scheme, we know how NHIS came into the country.
“It came suddenly and started abruptly, but now we have learnt a lot of lessons and experience.
“So I think the medical practitioners can give government advice on how best the NHIS can work, so this is my take on the NMA,” he said.
He also called on religious leaders to be sincere with the practice of their religions, saying they should put in their best, make things clear to their congregations and tell them the truth.
Gagarawa called on religious leaders to do their work with all sense of righteousness for the sake of Allah.
According to him, the best among the people as stated by Prophet Mohammed (PBH) is the one the community benefitted from with all the truth he has told them.
He called on medical doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists to treat their patients with respect, and to know that while earning their daily bread, they are working for the sake of Allah who is the utmost rewarder after death.
He said that if all medical workers had this perspective about Allah, they would put in their best to work, treat patients with respect and dignity.
According to him, with the less benefits from government which is not forthcoming, health workers can still give their best, while also hoping for the best on the side of the government.
He called on religious leaders to create awareness to their congregations about the special role religious leaders were playing, stressing that they represented God, and were chosen by Him, must continue to assist the sick.
Imam Khadir Alhassan, Imam of NHA, also called on health workers to be conscious of their profession, saying that consciousness of a profession mattered a lot.
He said that when a professional believed in supernatural being that rewards him for all he does, he would put every sense of hard work and effort on such profession.
Alhassan said that efforts and hard work to a profession could only be determined when somebody had that consciousness of God.
He said that such a person would be praised and that amounted to the recognition of Allah, whom he regarded as the controller, commander and sustainer of such person.
He added that the sense of consciousness in a profession was what made people to be praised, which he said was replicated in the practice of the healthcare system.
He said that the challenges in the health sector could be solved when religious leaders continued to preach patriotisms from the religion angle, saying that patriotisms was an offshoot of Islam.
“Patriotism in my context is having great love for the country, and doing anything you can do to make sure that country succeeds; these are part of what we preach from the pulpit all the time.
“We have often done this and the whole aim is to make sure we have patriotic professionals in the healthcare industry,” he said.
