“Every State is known by the rights that it maintains. Our method of judging its character lies, above all, in the contribution that it makes to the substance of man’s happiness” Harold Laski
At the very heart of the sit down strike by our doctors is “RIGHTS”, those “conditions” of social living without which no person can be that self that he or she wants to be. But from what I know, the doctors are not demanding a fulfilment of their rights; they are not even demanding for pay rise, perks, car allowance, equality of treatment with other professions. etc. They are fighting for the rights of the rest of society- right to life, right to the best attainable standard of health, right to development. This struggle is therefore a selfless one and all of us, the rest of us, should see this struggle, a Manichean one between a healthy society and a sick society, as one in which we have a higher stake. The wellbeing of each one of us is inextricably linked and tied to the demands of the doctors.
Anyone who have had an encounter with our health care system would know the sorry state of affairs of our hospitals and health centres. “Don’t get sick in The Gambia” is the warning shot. You may die of preventable disease or illness not for lack of doctors or expertise but mainly for lack of basic tools, equipment and medicine. Rabies is not suppose to kill. It kills here. X-ray machines are not enough. The barest minimum standards are not present. The basic equipment are lacking. Our doctors improvise to restore our health, to prolong our lives. “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth” Archimedes requested. This is what our doctors are demanding too, on our behalf “Give us the tools and create the enabling environment and we would improve the health of the people”.
It is true that public hostility or anger is against the doctors or being whipped against them. On most of the media, the doctors are being portrayed as the villains of the piece, as unpatriotic, as haters of the poor who use the public health system. Some attribute the death of patients to them, their callousness. I think they are backing the wrong horse, the doctors are the fall guys instead. The one to be held accountable, the one against who our collective anger and disappointment should be directed at is the State, and specifically the Minister and Ministry of Health. It has the obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right of the people to the best attainable standard of health. The death of a patient during this strike by our doctors should be laid squarely at the door of the Ministry of Health. Visit any of these hospitals and you will see an eye sore, you will come face to face with the “poverty” therein, the hard, harsh, unimaginable and heartrending conditions in which our nurses and doctors work.
We should judge the doctors on what they do, not on how their action is interpreted or defined. As citizens, just because we are citizens, it is our duty to scrutinize both the motive and character of governmental acts. We should know what what rights we have, the obligations of the State, the responsibilities of duty bearers and what standards the State should meet in fulfilling our rights. Ultimately, the State does not create but recognised rights and it’s character will be apparent from the rights that secure recognition.
To argue that the doctors do not have a right to strike because of their contractual agreement with the State and their Hippocratic Oath is not a useful approach to this problem. A denial of the right to strike will only exacerbate their disappointment, frustration and anger. It is to insist that the doctors must submit to whatever working conditions they have without complaint. It is to deny their right to association and its collolary rights. It is to give the State too much power over the lives of people. We must not forget that first and foremost it is the Government which has the contract and covenant with the people, of which doctors are part of, to provide good health care and has renege on that contract. The doctors are standing up for all of us, to demand that the State fulfils its contractual obligation with the people. The State must fulfil that obligation and give to citizens their due before it can demand, at least with justice, their loyalty. The solution to this stand off is the active participation of the doctors in the solution.
As a right holder, i am with other right holders, the doctors in this instance. Our lives are intertwined, our rights interconnected and interdependent. When the demands of the doctors are met, my rights to health, life and development are fulfilled. Rights holders must see each other as allies and support each other when one right is under siege or attack.
“For freedom, we know, is a thing that we have to conquer afresh for ourselves everyday, like love; and we are always losing freedom, just as we are always losing love, because after each victory, we think we can now settle down and enjoy it without further struggle…. The battle of freedom is never done, and the field never quiet.” Essays in Freedom by Henry W. Nevinson
Thanks so much my dear brother, you have said it right, straight and bravely. In your right up – papa 5, you stated
‘We should judge the doctors on what they do,
not on how their action is interpreted or defined’…..
I want to politely add or re-order this point but with your permission.
……….We should judge the doctors on what they do AND IN WHAT ENVIRONMENT, WITH WHAT TOOL(s) and above all UNDER WHAT LEADERSHIP STYLE..
(a. one of contempt/ disrespect / humiliation as displayed sadly by their minister or should it be b. one of appreciation, gratitude & encouragement).
I would go option b.
This is the fact for many of us.
This case reminds me of a school caretaker who sweeps all classrooms in the school with the traditional ‘back-braking’ broom and collects the rubbish in a bucket and carry it to the dump site. All this while, although he has requested several times for proper tools (wheelbarrow, rakes, cutlasses, etc) but yet to receive one, he continued his main source of income keeping the school as clean as he possibly can with the tools available – funnily those improvised by himself –
cutlass was his, broom he made from straws, bucket is an /disused/abandon bucket he uses to pick rubbish (while patiently waiting for supply with proper tools).
On a bad Friday morning at the school assembly ground, which has some leaves being blown by wind responded to an embarrassing and demeaning yelling from the headteacher calling him ‘a lazy caretaker’ for not sweeping the assembly ground and demanding him to pick the leaves immediately while the entire school (teachers & students) stand aside and wait. That became the moment of truth and an eye opener for many present. The caretaker boldly and gracefully stated that the manner with which the headteacher address him, is wrong and baseless, that if he so care about the cleanliness of the school he would have provided him with the right tools and that he CANNOT and WILL NEVER AGAIN go through what he has been going through without the appropriate tools he has requested many times.
The headteacher pretended to be surprised with the boldness of the caretaker and threaten him with sacking if he fail to adhere to his demands. A stand off ensued!!!!!
Assembly did not take place but rural justice was served without any media reporting or rights activists, isn’t that amazing.
The caretaker went to the chairman of parent/teacher’s association who came straight to the school and enquiring about the incident and wanting to go appeal to the headteacher but first approached and spoke to few teachers including me.
I asked the chairman to wait in my class while I check where the headteacher was and used the moment to calmly pointed to the headteacher (my boss) that it will better to provide the caretaker with the tools he need then monitor his work rather than sack him or suspend his pay. That I have seen him a few times mending his self-made broom to clean with and think he is doing his best to keep us all in a clean environment and that to sweep the entire open yard (assembly ground) with that short broom will be very difficult if not impossible on a regular basis. Initially, the headteacher looked at me and asked if I want to take side for the caretaker. I tried hard to remain calm and sated calmly again that I was a very junior staff not even 4th below the headteacher so no intention to disrespect him but that between me and Allah I thought that is a more wiser and fairer position than sacking him but that the final decision and its consequences are his prerogative. I was asked to leave the office which kind of embolden me on the reality that the headteacher himself does misses on his duty of care to even students and us teachers many times. So sacking a hard working caretaker for his reaction after humiliating him before the entire school not for any good reason but for not having the required tools to do his job better leading to the assembly ground partly covered with leaves for me was not the right thing to do.
I narrated my experience with the headteacher to few more staff anxious to hear the outcome and happily for me all of them share my feelings/view point. Henceforth, a ‘rural right group’ in solidarity with the caretaker naturally sprung out. We decided to stand together to see the caretaker not only remain in his job but to be supplied with the appropriate tools for the general good.
To cut a long story short, the headteacher realised the potential for such a small thing to become a storm in a tea pot, called me again this time with some old sarcasm (‘mansa laa borrii jehh laaa, lehmo aa neeniilaaa tii……’) to go buy the tools the caretaker needed as I initially suggested to him. This brought the issue to that progressive solution benefited us all.
Sticking with the headteacher because he is my boss even when he was in the wrong could have made the matter worse in many ways. We should learn to see/accommodate truth/justice and refrain from standing by people knowing openly they are wrong.
The minister would earn a great deal if she resign but forcing the system to keep her at the expense of people she acknowledged to have deliberately wronged could earn a great erosion of respect/trust/confidence in her future engagement wherever that may be.
My advice is:
Minister, you will never be happy in this position even without this doctors you clearly stated your distrust for let alone with them. The resulting impact will be the Gambian masses whom you meant to serve.
“This case reminds me of a school caretaker who sweeps all classrooms in the school with the traditional ‘back-braking’ broom and collects the rubbish in a bucket and carry it to the dump site. All this while, although he has requested several times for proper tools (wheelbarrow, rakes, cutlasses, etc) but yet to receive one, he continued his main source of income keeping the school as clean as he possibly can with the tools available – funnily those improvised by himself “.
While I mostly agree with the statements above Bambo, I wish to point out my reservations regarding the context in which the statements are made. Everyone reading this piece may also be aware that even with the provision for adequate supplies, those supplies will undoubtedly filter out of the system into private facilities just as meat, fish, oil and provisions for in-hospital patients make their way to the dinner tables of the top brass. Why else would family members be cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for loved ones in hospitals? Why would expectant and new mothers be required to bring sheets, laundry soap and towels to the wards with them? Why would patients be required to pay for glucose test strips? Under the watch of the same doctors that are now crying babies!
What is clear Bambo is that the perennial shortage of qualified Doctors and medical care in The Gambia has necessitated that care providers of all form offer services at home. Particularly where the demand is triggered by felt needs in the local communities. Dr MMAKOYE BORI KESSO TO, MMAKOYE PENKO TO, MMAKOYE SITA MOLO TO the request goes. However, these demands have also, over the years, given rise to all shades of “Doctors” practicing their craft in the community with the unintended consequences of undue health risks, drugs and supplies literally walking away from central medical stores, hospital pharmacies and local clinics with the attendant strain on resources being felt at all levels of service delivery.
Doctors, Dispensers, Nurses and other personnel are therefore hard pressed not to succumb to the temptation of moonlighting at local pharmacies where products labeled, Not For Sale, are dispensed out in the open. The question I have is why would medical personnel always be seen with that ubiquitous bag to work at all times? A Stethoscope can certainly fit in the front pocket.
Why do hospital Pharmacists and storekeepers have to keep all live saving drugs under lock and key? There’s good reason for that I believe. Or else that wouldn’t be the norm.
I have myself donated blood sugar testing meters and supplies to hospital wards only to be told on the next visit that the poor patients were being charged D40-50 per test by ward staff ostensibly on the excuse that the test strips came from other sources. I was heartbroken.
Bambo, let’s call folks out for what they are doing wrong in Gambian society. The problem of drug shortages at government run facilities have always been a headache for planners from when the PPP government was in place. There’s never been enough medication to go round ever!
What this seeming doctor debacle that, in my view, amounts to holding everyone else at ransom is a perennial problem that could be fixed if the medical profession will collectively cut out the jockeying and get to work for the good of our nation.
Granted that the issue of the poor state of medical facilities and services has always been and is still an endemic multi-faceted structural issue that must be addressed as a matter of urgency if we are, as a nation, to prevent the needless deaths of untold numbers of Gambians.
Get critically ill in our dear Gambia and….. That’ll be food for thought for all Gambians. Doctors included!
Freedom on line issue of 4th April reported email from VP to the Doctors shortly after meeting them to resolve the said strike caused ‘a major set back to the mediation process’!!!
If this is true, I have asked myself this questions –
WHEN WILL OUR LEADERS GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME?
And it appears to me that more Gambians need to start asking similar question, I may be wrong but if it helps, then good for Gambia which is our common goal.
My observation is this:
A good mediator should not only appear to be neutral but must maintain neutrality in every action, inaction, words spoken or otherwise (including on social media, body language, etc.) throughout the mediation process to achieve a positive result based on truth and common good.
A statement by a mediator (as reported) in an email suggestive/indicative of blame to one party of a dispute, or conditioning one party not both will automatically defeat the principle of neutrality thus derail mediation process. To me the said email did just that. the question thus come to mind:
WHEN WILL OUR LEADERS GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME?