Experts List Challenges Of Medical Practice

The Chairman of the FCT Branch of the Nigeria Medical Association, Dr Titus Ibekwe, said in Abuja that one of the major challenges facing medical practice in the country was how to meet world-class standards.

Speaking at a two-day Continuing Medical Education (CME) training, organised by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, Ibekwe said that the struggle to meet world-class standards had posed a great challenge, noting that the training was organised to tackle the problem.

“The whole essence here is to propagate excellence, share knowledge and come up with the latest development in the field of medicine and surgery. “In so doing, our members will be up to date with global standards in medical practice. We have experts in different fields, to interact with all the doctors in the FCT”, he said

He noted that other challenges entailed ensuring that standards were maintained in health care facilities, adding that facilities available were inadequate for the number of patients.

The chairman called on doctors and other professionals in the health sector, to work as a team, to achieve optimal result, stating that if medical practice was improved, it would impact positively on patients’ health and the entire society in the long run.

A Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr Christian Madubeze, in a paper on “Medical Tourism in Nigeria’s Health Care System,’’ said that patients travelled out for medical treatment because of a lack of facilities.

He listed other reasons as cost and longer waiting time for medical attention and absence of legislation to guide medical practice.

Madubeze listed other reasons as ignorance of locally available health care services, loss of confidence and dissatisfaction with local facilities and health care providers. “Others include unethical practises involving doctors and incentives by medical tourism companies.’’

He observed that patients travelled from developed countries to developing countries, such as India, Dubai, South Africa and Malaysia because of the cheaper medical services there.

He, however, said that the way forward was to improve the infrastructure and health care facilities, saying that doctors needed to also change their attitude to work.

Madubeze advised that strikes had to be reduced or eliminated, to restore public confidence and enable doctors to get better training.