Society of Family Physicians of Nigeria (SOFPON), Kwara State chapter, has urged Governor AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq to reduce the ‘huge’ tax slammed on private medical practitioners in the state for them to make positive contributions to the health needs of the people.
On World Family Doctors Day, yesterday, in Ilorin, the doctors canvassed the state government’s assistance in the areas of logistics and meeting the needs of Kwara people.
According to the Chairman, Dr Bode Ogunjemilua, the needs embedded in a quality healthcare system are too enormous for an individual to bear, just as he described AbdulRazaq’s policies in the healthcare sector as humane and novel.
He quoted William Osler, a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of John Hopkins Hospital, the SOFPON leader said, “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient, who has the disease.” The quotation, he said, should guide the physicians in their daily routine.
He added: “I wish to reiterate our plea to the state government and captains of industry to assist us in the treatment of the patients rather than the disease. However, it is no longer news that an effective healthcare system is costly. We, therefore, require assistance in many areas. We need a vehicle to facilitate our movement in and outside the state, a befitting secretariat building, and tax reduction for our members, among other compelling needs.
“The most important thing we are stressing through our association is better Universal Health Coverage (UHC), with primary health care as its foundation. We want this to start in Kwara. Health should not be the prize you win for climbing to the top of the pile; it should be the gift we’re all given; the gift that enables us to realise our dreams and fulfil our aspirations as those called to defend the Hippocratic Oath some years ago.”
Guest speaker at the event, Dr Anthony Joseph, who spoke on the topic, ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People: The Role of Family Physicians’, urged members of SOFPON to uphold the five principles of a total physician by being care providers, decision-makers, communicators, community leaders and managers.
The Head of Department (HOD) Accident and Emergency (A/E), General Hospital, Ilorin, warned that if nothing was urgently done to intervene in deforestation and other variables affecting the climate, “more deaths should be expected via climate change implications between 2030 and 2050.”
