Implement National Health Bill - MDCAN Tells Buhari

Steven Oluwole

President of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MDCAN), Steven  Oluwole has advised president  Elect  to undertake a comprehensive  reform of the political structure of the country from the Presidency down to all tiers of government. Oluwole, gave the advice while speaking on the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly Elections.

MDCAN also urged the President-elect to bring his tested integrity to bear by sticking to, and implementing  his campaign promises on corruption, security and revamping the economy. He said, “The phenomenon of the campaign, which centered on the tested integrity of the President-Elect, should not be political device to win election, but the very instrument to govern, and truly reform the culture of ‘government money in government house’, graft, reckless spending, and impunity of public office holders.while speaking on the just concluded presidential/Senate election.

“The political capital gained by the APC-led government should transform the landscape and curb the rot only known in Nigeria, where senators’ annual take-home pay exceed that of the President of the USA. Governors’ security votes, which make mockery of sanity, should be streamlined to reality.

“There must be complete reform from the Presidency to all tiers of government. A fleet of 11 Aircrafts for Nigerian President, if indeed true, is inexplicable and outrageous when the President of the USA officially has one, and the Prime Minister of UK has none. The outragous allocations for meals, diesel and sundries should be scrapped, when the President of the USA pays for his meals.”Oluwole also advised the incoming Buhari led- government not to change in totality all the policies put in place by outgoing government . According to him: “Change must not be wholesale rejection of  the past and present.

“ There must be systematic appraisal of the entire system, which should lead to retention of the good, upgrade of the deficient, and replacement of the repugnant.”

He, however cautioned the Buhari government to resist  the idea of privatizing tertiary health care in the country, as this according to him, will deprive the poor from assessing, affordable,  qualitative and sophisticated health care services. “The questionable, and possibly ill-motivated, drive to privatise tertiary health care should be resisted. Teaching hospitals should not be converted to for-profit Institutions . “Such  conversion will limit the number and category of patients that can receive teaching hospital services to those who have resources to pay.

“They will be robbed of  their traditional values, and hindered from effective teaching,  research, and development of medical services,” the MDCAN president reiterated.

While commenting on the recently concluded presidential elections, Oluwole said that  the elections produced a seismic shift of the political structure and alignments. He, however, warned that  the energy must be harnessed to drive development and progress rather than to drive extinction or annihilation of non-participating or dissenting tribes, ethnic groups, and members of discordant schools of thought.”

The outcome of the election says a lot about the vision and expectation of Nigerians for their country.

“The voting, which was for an ideal,  was not a gift to a party to proceed on triumphal procession, but to get to work and fix a crumbling nation. The territorial integrity of the country, which did not disintegrate as predicted, must be preserved,” he  noted.

Source: Vanguard News.