A joke is often told of life after death in hellfire. It goes thus, the American President George Bush asked to make a call from hell to the U.S of A, the following conversation which lasted barely five minutes ensued are the Republicans still in power? Has Osama bin Laden been caught how did Saddam escaped. George still maintained there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The ex-President dropped, his bill was Ten Dollars Tony Blair on the other hand, asked for forgiveness from his fellow Britons, as he blamed Bush for deceiving him into the war. He told friends he was not finding hellfire funny at allthe British Prime Minister spent eight minutes and paid the devil Fourteen Dollars for his call. Then Uncle Sege took the phone, he spent fifteen minutes greeting the new PDP Chieftains, he asked of who was the new Mr. Fix It, he still expressed his bitterness with his Owu Kinsmen. He said he was disappointed that AD had captured back the Whole South West again as he spoke on the phone went dead from the other end, the Nigerian President spent thirty minutes in all, as he made his hands into his Agbade pockets to reach for wades of notes. The Devil smiled sorry its just thirty Cents. Why asked Obasanjo? Its a local call, the line even went dead at a point and you actually just called an annex of hell fire. No citizen of the Unfederal Republic of Nigeria should be made to make a choice between health and death, between a free medical treatment, non existent one and a costly one abroad. The health of a nations citizenry should be of paramount importance. All categories of health care should be provided free for Nigerians given the kind of resources at the nations treasury. The above is just mere rhetoric. The University Teaching Hospital in Jos, Plateau State just concluded a months strike. concluded because its a usual routine from time to time. The University Teaching Hospital in Idi Araba Lagos State also just called off its own. Its either the Resident Doctors are not paid or deductions are removed from the ones that are paid. Sometimes that is even not the case. The Doctors are at loggerheads with the Chief Medical Director or the nurses are quarreling with patients. One of the major scandals of this administration is in the health sector. The procurement of Hospital Equipment for Teaching Hospitals across the nation by the Ministry of Death (I mean Health). No one till date has been brought to book for the crime, it was just swept under the carpet. The episode died a natural death because NEPA took light and the lines were bad and for those who had generating sets there was no fuel to run it. The matter died Its been a long time I cried for Nigeria, as tears have not brought the needed change. A very good friend of mine was involved in a car accident with a spinal cord damage, limp legs and a deep cut in the neck. It became obvious that an expert neurosurgeon was required this has further opened my eye to the ridicule called medicine3 in Nigeria and the shame we take in the name of health care delivery. I stand to be corrected the entire nation of 120million Nigeria can only boast of barely ten of such surgeons,. The rest are either in Saudi Arabia, Dubai or Gabon. The entire North of the country at the moment has only two. One in the University Teaching Hospital Jos, Plateau StateBad news however is the doctor is in far away U.S of A battling for his own life against cancer. The remaining one who is supposed to be in Sokoto State is somewhere else and even, his assistant cannot say his whereabouts. One of the epitome of Medicare the reckoned University College Hospital has only two, we only hope they will have light to perform the surgery or pray that perhaps water will not finish when they commence the surgery. The remaining neurosurgeons are somewhere. If this is not pathetic, then wait. To get an ambulance, a functional one to move him was another tales by moonlight. Our task was like looking for the Kano groundnut pyramid in Lagos. The best we could get had bad brakes we were made to understand. We managed to get a private hospital that could offer a manageable one. The number of Nigerians born outside the shores of this land especially in the USA may not be unconnected with the reason for the change in their citizenship laws by birth. I once asked if any one had the statistics of Nigerian mothers who now sought maternity care to avoid mistake ridden miscarriages by going to Britain and Ireland. The amazing figures of infant mortality rate in our hospitals are frightening. God help us! Yet we are still seeking what to do or how to conjure our disappearing magic to the recent crude oil boom revenue. Yet 812million Naira fraudulent taken from Nigerians as fuel tax, has developed wings. Nigerians are mad. Yes! If not please kindly explain to me how rational thinking society will sit and allow its doctors go on strike. No, let me make it sound real and true as it is. As we breathed the air of September, Resident Doctors of the Nations premier hospital for Kolopeople (I mean the National Psychiatric Hospital in Yaba Lagos State) began a two-day warning strike. Why? To protest acute shortage of medical personnel and innocently they claimed affected the quality of their services. This leaves us all at the mercies of madmen and women alike. Shortage of medical personnel, the medical school result of this year in Lagos showed a 40% failure rate, as Tom, Dick, Harry and Alice are all admitted to do Medicine. These days when I get a few knocks that ordinarily should see me visit the hospital, I heal myselfhow you ask? I simply remind myself of the quality of the doctors our universities are producing and look I get well. Only recently I had reason to visit a Consultant MD as they are called, before I got to him, my wife and I took pains and read up all the literature we could of the situation real time online. By the time we started talking, the doctor kept nodding his head, at point he started taking notes, naively he blurted out madam how do you know these thingssome are new to me (not exact words). You can imagine the doctors diagnosis, prescription and remedial treatment was a case of terminological inexactitude, lies and lack of knowledge. It is ungratifying to know that not much can be done because in Nigeria, each man to himself, God for us all. The rich with stolen wealth fly to Germany to tackle headache, mere waist pain and heartburn caused by heartless stealing and calculation of stolen money. And the poor die of mosquito bite as an illness and hunger inflicted by poverty. A very questionable and fraudulent National Health Insurance Scheme has refused to leave the drawing board because they have not been able to discover how they would steal from the scheme. The national Hospital in Abuja FCT has moved from one board to another and the result abysmal failure. In this century, this millenium Nigerians are dying of malaria and still playing the politics of polio. Hell on earth, hell in Nigeria, I was the other day privy to see the booking list for surgery at one of our empty (Teacherless) Teaching Hospitals. I was marveled that a patient with hernia after PROPER diagnosis was booked for surgery in eight months time, what value for life! The doctor friend of mine I confronted lamented the dearth of qualified doctors and what he termed the Away syndrome the few of them were awaiting an opportunity to leave. Despite the shortage of nurses in our hospitals, every student nurses dream was practicing in USA and Canada. Nigerians are die-hard, every thing in our entire system sucks of dirtthat is why after surgery a scissors was left inside of a patient because the theatre was poorly lit. No action what so ever was taken against the hospital. I finally, say to the suffering masses of this unjust society of ours to take solace in the fact that they will surely see heaven. As already they are in hell now. While their leaders will surely see hell, as they are in heaven alreadyno amount of money they steal can buy them an insurance against the fact. | 
