By Sana Sarr
About two weeks ago, The Minister of Health and Social Welfare delivered a speech in which she blamed the country’s ailing health system in part to “doctors stealing medicine” from the hospitals and selling them in their private pharmacies. In response, the Association of Gambian Resident Doctors issued a statement demanding a withdrawal of the minister’s statements, an apology from the minister and the minister’s resignation among other things. They threatened to go on a sit down strike if their demands were not met. I must admit that i was dismayed by this rather bold and seemingly uncompromising stance. To begin with, I know that the minister will not bear the brunt of any strike, for she, like other top government officials, probably has access to resources to send their close family members abroad for medical attention should they need it. The poor innocent Gambians will be the ones to suffer. However, I was hesitant to condemn the doctors because I also know that perhaps more than anyone else, certainly more than the politicians, they are professionals and they care about their patients. With this in mind, I held off on taking a side on the dispute. All i kept asking for was that our leadership takes leadership to help resolve the issue so it wouldn’t get to a strike.
Unfortunately, that was not to be. Not enough was done and the doctors proceeded to begin phase 1 of their strike. The minister delivered what many consider a half-assed unapologetic apology but the doctors saw through the smokescreen and refused to budge. Phase 2 of the strike has now been activated. More Gambians are aware and, consequently, emotions have started running high. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of the negative comments i see on Social Media are, in my opinion, misdirected towards the doctors. A good number are due to a lack of understanding of the doctors’ demands or their reasons. Many, understandably, are rooted in the sympathy for the innocent patients. Some are rooted in outright political bias, and others in downright ignorance
Let me begin by reminding you all that Gambian doctors are paid significantly less than many of their counterparts around the world. Yet, there is nothing in their demands even mentions their salaries or compensation. That should answer some of the critics calling them selfish.
Below in italics are some of the comments I saw online followed by my reaction to them.
“The strike is unjustifiable because the doctors are doing it only because their egos are bruised by the minister’s remarks. Why did they not go on strike to demand better health facilities?”
This suggests a lack of understanding of why the doctors are on strike. From their press statements, what I understand is that the minister’s remarks were only the tipping point that pushed the doctors over the edge of what was already a fragile relationship between them and their minister. Yes, they want the minister to apologize for her remarks and to resign, but the resignation is because the doctors feel they need a more competent individual who they feel will be capable of moving the ministry in the right direction. The apology may fix the “bruised egos”, but there will be no change in policies and direction if the same leadership remains. I think this is a simple enough issue. If the people you are supposed to lead say they have no confidence in you, what’s the point of staying? Sudorn mann la sah ma gehda!
“The minister was justified because we all know doctors steal medication from the hospital”
All the doctors serve under the supervision of the ministry of health. The minister has the authority to set up a task force to investigate any wrongdoing by the doctors. It is the minister’s responsibility to create the structures and policies to ensure accountability for all the hospital resources including medication. A failure of that system ultimately rests on the minister. There is therefore no reason for the minister to go out in public and make generalized accusations when she has not done anything to address the problem internally.
Why do the statements mean so much to the doctors? It’s rather simplistic to blame it on “egos.” It is deeper than that. The relationship between doctors and patients is based on confidence. If that confidence is undermined, especially by the doctor’s boss, there remains little to go by. Patients will have no confidence in their doctors after they’ve been told by the Minister that the doctors are thieves and cheats.
Similarly, the relationship between doctors and the minister is also based on trust and confidence. With these remarks, it’s clear there is no trust. How then can the two parties continue to work with each other?
“By going on strike over who the minister is, the doctors are betraying the oath they signed to save lives”
I went back to read the hippocratic oath. I got the feeling that many who cite that oath have no clue what it says. I suggest that folks go and read it before trying to use it for an argument.
“The doctors should care about the patients”
From their statements, I understand that the change in the leadership that the doctors are demanding is in the hopes of bringing better services to their patients. “You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs” is the saying. We all know that unlike most other countries, doctors in The Gambia are not the best paid. The rigor of medical school is also well-known, so I doubt many put themselves through the years of studying if they did not care about their patients. The doctors also live in The Gambia with their relatives and friends. Again, we know they’re not the richest so most of them cannot afford to send their families abroad for treatment. Therefore, this strike affects them as much as anyone, especially those of us in the diaspora, sending condemnation via social media.
“A medical emergency should be declared and a request be made to China and Cuba to airlift doctors to come treat our people to replace immoral striking doctors”
This is probably the dumbest of the ones I saw. Really, genius? Rather than ask the leadership of our government to sit with the doctors and resolve this as a family we should go bring Chinese and Cuban doctors to replace them? Are those Cubans and Chinese doctors going to remain in the country forever? And you call us an “independent” nation? Should we discard the Gambians who have spent years studying and serving our sick and vulnerable just because we disagree with them one time? And what do you do when we fall out with China and Cuba, run to Pakistan and North Korea? Or do you suggest we become a colony of China and Cuba?
”And the bloody fools should all be prosecuted if they go to work in their private clinics as well.”
That’s another gem I saw on Facebook. I don’t even know where to begin responding to this one. Prosecute individuals for working in their own private clinics. Maybe President Barrow should get a different haircut, begin walking on his knees and be renamed Kim-Jong-Adu! The North Korean dictatorship is a lie!
Here we are, two weeks later, and not a word from the executive. The president was busy posing in front of the main hospital, talking about “refurbishments” of the physical structures as his claim to “prioritize” healthcare, while there were no doctors inside the hospital. The Vice President was posing for pictures at the Commission on the Status of Women, (CSW) conference at the United Nations. Meanwhile, poor women in The Gambia can’t find doctors to treat them. NOT A WORD! This nonchalant, even negligent, attitude of our top administration, added to some of the angry, sometimes vile, rhetoric against the doctors helped push me to be more sympathetic to what may have pushed the doctors to that desperate corner.
While i understand the sentiments and rationale asking the doctors to return to work out of consideration for the innocent patients, I can also see why they will believe that any softening of their stance will result in their plight being totally ignored. If the administration is unwilling to budge, even at the risk of patients dying, what is to say that they will even speak to the doctors if they simply go back to work? President Barrow did not bat an eyelid when he fired Mai Ahmad Fatty, someone he called a friend, without so much as an explanation to Gambians. How then, is the Minister of Health, who is not a technocrat in the health field, so indispensable to the government that they’re willing to lose doctors and patients to keep her as health minister? How difficult would it be to simply assign her to a different ministry, even if it’s just to save lives? When the players of a football team collective declare a lack of confidence in their coach, the administration has no option but to let the coach go. Soldiers cannot be led by a general they have no trust or confidence in. This should not be that complicated.
This whole episode is a very sad and difficult one for me. Personally, I would have asked the doctors to try different methods of pushing to make the changes they seek. However, after seeing how the leadership has stubbornly ignored their demands, I can totally understand why the doctors felt they had no better alternatives. I continue to hope and pray that cooler heads prevail, and that no innocent lives are lost. We can do better!
The Onslaught on religion Part Two
Musa Bah
In our previous article on the same title, we looked at how religion is being attacked from outside and how it is being ridiculed as primitive and barbaric. Most of these attacks though emanate either form religious people or were caused by them. The existence of a Supreme Being who controls the Heavens and the Earth is widely accepted due to the manifestations of God, the Almighty.
The challenge that proponents of religion face today is – or should be – more on the effort to ‘cleanse’ those within than warding off the attacks of those without. The actions of the ‘believers’ bring disrepute to religion and; its enemies capitalize on it to sway more people to leave religion and become atheists. To stem the flow of recantation therefore, we must look both within religion and outside it.
That means we must seek to find the cause of these behaviors and try to change the attitudes of the adherents of religion that come with it and make them behave in a more seemly and conformist manner to stop the flow of weapons (arguments) which we willingly hand over to the enemies of religion. The world needs religion; no doubt, because all other systems have failed to bring peace and tranquility to the world.
A little delving into the history of Communism will reveal that it has utterly failed in bringing the equality it was meant to bring. That inequality and the inevitable grudge and frustration that comes with it brought it to its knees. This was exemplified in the fall of the Soviet Union a few decades ago. It broke it up into many small and poor countries, many of which went away with a lot of anger directed at Moscow.
Capitalism on the other hand has the ability to present a farce – an illusion of equality – to the world. We are told that Capitalism offers everyone the chance to succeed and thus ultimately, equality will be attained. It projects giving power to the people by giving them the opportunities to improve their livelihoods. But we observe on a daily basis how even in the most advanced Capitalist countries, a large section of society is left to fend for themselves against many hurdles – both natural and artificial. The economic competition makes it almost impossible for them to pull themselves out of the bottomless pit of poverty and want. A little study of Hurricane Katrina will make this point clear.
Thus, the only option left to save the world, to prevent a massive catastrophe which will consume the world, is religion. (In this writeup, religion means any Divine Religion that is based on the belief in the existence of God: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism and indeed all religions.)
Thus, it becomes quite clear that the argument has shifted from whether or not God exists, to what palpable effect(s) can be observed in the belief that God exists and what establishing a connection or link with Him can do for man on both the individual level and on societal level. That is why the study of the lives of the people who have primarily established a connection with Him should be studied and used as a basis to establish this fact.
Towards that end, we have to of course study the lives of these people before and after the connection was made. The Holy Qur’an gives a pointer to this when it said, ‘Faqad labistu fiikum umran min qablihii afalaa ta’qiloon’ (Say, O Muhammad, I have lived among you a whole lifetime before this (the claim to prophethood), wont you reflect?) Ch. (10 Verse 17) The Meccans were being told to reflect on the fact that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (thousands of blessings be upon him) lived an entire life among them before he claimed and yet, not a single one among them could ever point out anything wrong that he ever did. The question is; if he were false or evil, could he have hidden it all from them all a whole lifetime? The obvious answer is NO. One would therefore assume that if he did not lie about men, or his relationship with them, it would be farfetched to imagine that he would lie about God or his relationship with Him.
When the Meccans received this message, those among them who were gifted with insight accepted the message and became Muslims. In a short time, they were transformed from ignorant, vile people to pious and spiritual people who valued the relationship with Allah more than they valued their own lives. Within a short time, the land of Arabia was converted into a civilized society. This was why they were able to conquer the rest of the then known world and ushered in a new dawn of civilization.
Observing the transformation brought about Islam, Dr. Michael Hart ranked Muhammad (thousands of blessings be upon him) number one among the world’s greatest men ahead of Moses, Jesus and others who brought about similar, but less, transformations earlier. It would appear that at that time (the time of the Prophets, if you like), this argument – the transformations that a belief in God can bring about – was powerful enough to turn the tide in the argument of the existence or otherwise of God in favor of religion.
Why then, one may ask, is the argument now almost in favor of those who say that God has no place in our ‘enlightened’ lives? The answer to this question is complex and will need a lot of details to even begin to satisfy modern man. However, it is enough to say that people – or most people – no longer seem to care much about values and morals, even among the so-called religious ones. That, therefore, is our next stop, so to speak. In the next instalment of ‘The Onslaught on religion’, we will seek to reveal how the deteriorating morality, the infights and bickering between and among religions has – and continues to – harm belief in God. Then we will attempt to give solutions from our own very limited knowledge of these and other complex issues.
All praise belong to Allah, Lord of the Universe!