MEDICAL DOCTORS THE CAUSES OF OUTBREAK OF
DISEASES IN
NIGERIA
This article is to call the attention of the public to various
outbreaks of diseases in our various state of the Nation.
Recently there is an outbreak of Cholera in Lagos State, a
State of Excellence is not expected to suffer this set back
but inadequacy of sanitary inspectors (ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH OFFICER) is one of the bases of the problems at
hand.
I tagged this article as “MEDICAL DOCTORS THE CAUSES
OF OUTBREAK OF DISEASES” Yes truly by my own
experience in Civil service you will always see the Medical
Doctors at both preventive and curative corridor of policy
making and this profession always wish to subdue other
Health Profession in other to make their own profession
look like the only important and Necessary profession in
Health Care delivery system.
In Health care Delivery system we have both preventive
and curative system but any issue or policy that will
enhance preventive medicine will be killed by Medical
Doctors. To buttress my view let ask ourselves, When last
have Lagos State Government Employed Environmental
Health Officer at State Ministry of Health? The Newly
established Primary Health Care Board? But the
Employment of Medical Doctors is nearly every months
with a huge salary/Allowances and their prayer is for
many Nigerian to continuously visit the Hospital so that
they will continue to make unnecessary high rise in salary
pay with the claim that they are loaded with a lot of duty
at the detriment of the nation wealth, when a simple
prevention would have save a lot expended on treatment.
A clarion call to our political office holders to pay
attention to Preventive Health rather than the huge
amount of Money expended on Medical Doctors and
drugs , while Preventive diseases still emanate and kill our
innocent citizen .
For Nigeria to wake up from a deep environmental
slumber and start doing what needed to be done, means
that, perhaps, the Lassa fever and Cholera outbreak has
finally sounded the clarion call that this is the time for
Nigeria to wake up to the reality that the direct
consequence of poor environmental sanitation is high
morbidity and mortality rates due to sanitation-related
diseases like cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid.
The wise adage says, “A stitch in time saves nine” or,
more colloquially, prevention is better than cure; but we
live in a country where the government and the people’s
body language says “cure is better than prevention”.
I wonder what made us forget where we are coming from
as a country. Some of the best aspects of governance like
sanitary inspection which used to be standard practice
before, have been discarded, and now it is manifest that
we are paying dearly for it. Can we count how many times
we hear of individuals and families dropping dead after
having a particular meal? Could it be that some of these
incidents were just cases of contamination due to
widespread poor environmental health situation in the
country today? Those that lived in the colonial and post-
colonial periods in Nigeria knew them as “Wole-Wole”
among the Yoruba, “Nwa ole-ala” among the Igbo, and
“Duba-Geri” in the Hausa-speaking parts of the country.
They were the dreaded, respected and, yes, obeyed
government workers in Nigeria who took preventive health
to an enviable height.
Nigeria needs them today more than ever before. This is
because as the adverse effects of climate change is
visiting developing countries, the adaptation strategies
must include environmental health. Sadly, in Nigeria
today, the position of Environmental Health Officers in
Primary Health Care has been hijacked by medical health
practitioners (most especially medical doctors) and it is
not supposed to be so. The truth is that doctors have
professional orientation that centres wholly on curative
health, and not preventive health – the guiding practice of
environmental health.
Environmental health officers, also known as public health
inspectors, the world over have standard duties which
include protection of water sources, waste water
treatment, waste management, vector and pest control,
prevention and control of land, air and water pollution,
food hygiene and safety. Others are air quality
management, occupational noise management,
occupational health and safety, accommodation
establishment, port health duties, accident prevention,
environmental health aspect of public recreation and
tourism, etc. In more developed countries, sanitary
inspectors are actually the people who review the floor
plans of new buildings and give approval for builders.
Could it be that the absence of these officers is a
fundamental contributor to the ubiquitous cases of
building collapse in Nigeria in recent times?
Our government needs to sit up. Health delivery is not
only about cure and care. There are a lot of diseases that
are environmentally preventable. And there are a lot of
environmental indices that set the template for the
inevitable breeding of vectors, and then subsequent
outbreak of epidemics, just as witnessed in the case of
Lassa fever. Now is the time to be wholistic in planning
for the safety of the Nigerian masses, rather than wait for
emergencies. Let us take a look at the Roll Back Malaria
programme for instance. There are four intervention
strategies: Early diagnosis and prompt treatment; Use of
insecticides treated bed nets and mosquito control;
provision of malaria treatment for pregnant women to
reduce impact of malaria infection on their health, and on
the health and development of their children; and
prevention and responses to epidemics. But the situation
is that the last strategy is downplayed in favour of the
first three; ironically, prevention and response to epidemic
is the one Nigeria needs more to stem the tide of malaria
permanently and this is where environmental health
management is required.
Medical Doctors should stop playing politics with the life
of people and wasting the wealth of the Nation. Right
policy should be embraced, using an opportunity of been
the health administrator to destroy our Health Care
system especially Preventive Health ( Environmental
Health) should stop.
San. Akinyele Cyril B.
Reho, BSc, Msc.

I think the write up is on point, what is your opinion on this?

So environmental health is only aspect of preventive health. What about immunization, personal hyqiene etc? Note that preventive medicine, a medical specialty includes preventive health. In early 90s sanitary inspectors or eho did their work with dignity. But now things have changed. I know some of them in local govt offices sitting doing not. Pls direct ur anger to ministry of enviroment and govt. It is govt that wil pay and moe enforce law.

This post is so so sick.

They are idle@lagusta probably because their Oga at the top dont know much about enforcing environmental laws because he wasn't trained exclusively on that rather he is an expert in curative.
So give them Oga kpatakpata wey sabi environmental health not the preventive medicine..ish and watch the loyalty and turn up. In health, like attract like, unlike magnet where north attract south..comprende doc.

Joanna Sedley: They are idle@lagusta probably because their Oga at the top dont know much about enforcing environmental laws because he wasn't trained exclusively on that rather he is an expert in curative.
So give them Oga kpatakpata wey sabi environmental health not the preventive medicine..ish and watch the loyalty and turn up. In health, like attract like, unlike magnet where north attract south..comprende doc.

Were u trying to quote laalamed