ESUT PARKLANE HOSPITAL RESIDENT VULTURES AND THE SIPPING METASTASIS OF MEDICAL IGNOMINY

Free money and greed for money: those are the genesis and revelation of the dance of shame witnessed yesterday in Enugu NMA AGM election. Remove the free money and you would have removed the developing shame in the medical profession. Keep the compulsory deductions from the source of salaries of doctors and make tomorrow's medical shame worse than yesterday's professional disaster. Problems are solved from the root cause, and not from the fruits. I shall quickly point out that the effort to ensure that the provisions of the NMA national Constitution that any voter in NMA state election pays his full association dues up to the date of the national AGC/DM are upheld has nothing to do with the eventual destination of the collected dues in the hands of the state executive body. The effort is purely to ensure that only paying members of the state NMA are allowed to dictate who leads Enugu NMA. 

Greed in medical associations has always been there from 1960. However, I personally witnessed proper greed in the profession in 2014 shortly after my appointment into residency training program of ESUT Teaching Hospital Parklane, Enugu state. It shocked me so much that I raised alarms equally so much, and called out for the impeachment of the instant culprits. Many resident doctors appeared to be sad about the thieving happenings but nobody appeared to be ready to act to stop them. 

The current crocodile tears shed by the same gang that had mocked the Enugu NMA stance full payment is only for the weak and the gullible. The issues are very simple. You have been stealing from NMA since 2018 when Dr Okwesili assumed office. He told you that you would not be accorded rights and privileges that go with payment of dues. You snubbed him and called his bluff. A year passed and you were busy stealing from an association he superintended. You tell those members of yours that were easily deceived that nothing would happen. You also regarded other due-paying members of the association as unwise. Notwithstanding all your tauntings of the Enugu NMA leadership, the chairman still backed down at the dying minute and asked you to submit a list of 106 members who were then deemed to have paid dues up to date. You ignored him for weeks only to present a day to the election with an unverified and unverifiable list and wish to shove it down the throat of the NMA Enugu state. You are now sparring with NMA Enugu state to know who is the boss. This is the type of elements found in Parklane residency. Rules are made for responsible people. Irresponsible people do anything to trivialize rules. This same mentality has not left a chunk of Parklane residents who have embraced the ignominy of past ARD leaderships of Parklane with eyes always and only on the money, particularly the 2014 Parklane ARD leadership. 

This was the gist of 2014 Parklane resident doctors association. The officials of the association had an unrestricted and uninhibited access to the salaries of resident doctors of Parklane Hospital directly at the Enugu state ministry of Finance. All they needed was to write the Enugu state Accountant General for deduction of such and such amount from the salaries of all the resident doctors in Parklane Hospital and they get it. That happened without any authorization from those doctors whose salaries were to be deducted. From September to November 2014, ten thousand naira was deducted from the salaries of all the doctors, even with all the protests spanning those three months. 

The compulsory deductions from the salaries of doctors went on until those officials deducted over N18Million from resident doctors' salaries for the period of their self-appointed two year tenure. At the last AGM of that regime in December 2014, the officials lied to the Congress that all they deducted was a total of N11Million and that they spent more than that amount, hence the association was owing them some hundreds of thousands of naira. 

The Parklane residents association set up an Audit Panel in 2015 to find out the truth in the rendered account of 2014 after discovering that the outgone officials did not, in fact, pay out the millions of naira they claimed that they had paid to NMA. 

I was appointed the chairman of that panel. It is remarkable that the Access bank officials denied my panel access to the full details of the association financial dealings as they worked in cahoots with the outgone officials. It took my firmness to break their resistance. And what was more! My panel discovered that the outgone officials used hidden account to divert association funds. We also discovered that the outgone officials deducted a whopping sum of N18Million during their tenure and spent less than N8Million, thereby embezzling N10.44Million. I have since then lived the consequences of this revealing job. 

Fast forward to 2019. After a series of protests and letters to the government of Enugu state to stop all deductions from the salaries of doctors and allow doctors to voluntarily pay their association dues, I discovered that their were more interests in the deductions from source than I had envisaged. All my letters fell on deaf ears until I issued government with a preaction notice to litigate the matter at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria. In a swift response to the suit, the Enugu NMA led by Dr Okwesili suspended me at the 2019 Enugu NMA AGM. The Parklane ARD had done the same months earlier after robbing and physically attacking my person. 

The former CMAC of Parklane Hospital, to whom I reported the robbery and physical attacks, and in whose presence the culprit admitted attacking and robbing me of my valuables, denied everything in the office of the Commissioner of Police when called. That was one of the reasons I am ever grateful to the government of Enugu state for removing her from that office. It only took the fatherly intervention of the CMD of the hospital, who took care of all my losses, to calm the situation down. 

Brethren, the blood we saw yesterday on Dr JOT's face and hand, at Toscana NMA imbroglio, was on my face and hand in 2019, perpetrated by the financial vultures in ESUT Parklane Hospital, because I instituted a suit to stop the free money. I warned that it could get worse and we were yet to see more. 

Association elections in ESUT Teaching Hospital is a war time whenever sincere men of virtue aspire to the leadership of that ARD. The type of character assassination that ignorant stooges of the vultures are detailed to spread could honestly make God cry. The association is riddled with shameless vultures who would do anything to remain relevant and suck their colleagues dry. These shameless men and women are mostly found in those fields of Medicine that are known not to be busy areas in the teaching hospitals. They take no calls and do no weekend duties. All that these persons do with their time is endless scheming for doctors' funds and machinations against perceived obstacles. They have no interest whatsoever in the welfare of doctors, but are quick to arrogate any welfare achievements of doctors to themselves. They are obligates.

ESUT Parklane resident vultures are gradually sipping and metastersizing. The metastasis is no longer limited to ESUT Parklane Hospital. It has spread to Enugu NMA where they intend to invade and obtain state protections for their further local financial impunities that were checked in these past two years. This locoregional metastasis will soon extend to distant organs at the national levels. This is not what any responsible doctor should desire and permit. Free money and greed for unchecked money: those are the genesis and revelation of the dance of shame witnessed yesterday in Enugu NMA AGM election. Remove the free and unaccounted-for moneies and you would have removed the shame painting the medical profession. Keep the compulsory deductions from salaries of doctors and make tomorrow worse than yesterday. Problems are solved from the rootcause, not from the leaves. 

It is only when payment of medical association dues are made clearly voluntary that this madness will end. People should pay association dues to a regime with visible plan and execution, and none to vagabonds and hooligans. As long as these habitual tillers know that there is free money with no competent provisions for account, the scramble for the money will continue and eventually reach a crescendo of loss of medical lives in no distant future. Not only that: medical leaderships will continue to be occupied by people with no interest in the welfare of doctors, but everything to line their private pockets. The current arrangement of vagaries shall keep churning out scums of the medical profession as our ambassadors and spill them into the national political space where they only paint the medical profession black with their warped reasoning; rather than grooming doctors with true Hippocratic blood running in their veins. That is the sad reality. 

Disclaimer!!!

This article, in no way, aims at endorsing the other unacceptable activities of the current NMA Chairman, Dr Okwesili, who knows exactly how to exercise powers that he does not constitutionally have, but does not know how to exercise the constitutional powers that he actually has. While I commend him for his successful efforts at bringing ESUT Parklane resident vultures to pay the dues of their members before their members are allowed to vote in NMA elections, I find it curious and disappointing that the said chairman could not organize a decent and peaceful election, hence the bloodshed. The refusal of the Parklane residents to send in the list of 100 members that were said to have been paying NMA dues was not enough to truncate the elections as there were better ways of conducting a peaceful election. We wait to see how the current Enugu NMA would deal with these medical misroads for bringing this shame and disrepute on our noble profession. 

Fred awkadigwe