appointing a health professional as minister of health has never worked t the advantage of the sector and the country as a whole.

Hence, rather than sticking to the old order, he want the president to emulate the rest of the world where the health sector is managed by a non-core health professional to ensure harmony in the sector. He also cited examples in the past where the country has had a non-health professional at the helm of affairs in the sector, a period he said was the sector recorded tremendous development and growth.He said, “Our expectation is that government will be guided in the health sector, we have had an occasion where people who were not core health professionals were at the helm of the ministry, we have relative peace, we have harmony, there was tremendous deliverables in terms of output and that is what we expect.In the second republic when Alhiaji Shehu Shagari was the president, the minister of Health was a Lawyer, Mr. EC.C Ugwu, there was tremendous harmony and concord among health care professionals and also in the term of President Olusegun Obasanjo, you have Prof. ABC Nwosu who is not a core health professional, there was relative peace and harmony in the health sector. In his second term, we had Prof. Eyitayo Lambo, who is a Health Economist, and thee was relative peace and harmony in the health sector and in terms of deliverables, the tenure of Prof. Lambo could be regarded as the best. He brought his wealth of experience as an economist to bear on the health sector in terms of policy document, conceptualization of programmes and projects, there funding and management, it was just marvelous.“So we should be guided by history. Anytime we bring physicians, they want to favour their constituency and in the process you have upheaval, a situation where you will give people that belong to your constituency what government has approved for them, then for others you trample under feet, you behave as if what government has approved for other does not exist, there can be no peace in such an atmosphere.“So all we are saying is that the health sector is a multi-professional and multi-disciplinary sector and it thrives on team work. So every member of the team must be taken care off. There must be a sensitive balancing of both resources and administrative atmosphere to give everybody a sense of belonging and that way they will be multi acted to give their best. “Orthodox health care practices didn’t originate from Nigeria. The places we copied it from including UK that colonized Nigeria, they have relative peace and harmony. What you see there they never put any healthcare professional at the helm of administrative wheel of their health sector. They have what they call Health Service Administrators. They go to universities to study just like every health care professional does that way they have the managerial acumen, they have the administrative and experience. They have the holistic view of how to manage manpower, materials and money in order to deliver a goal.

But what we see here people just came and they think they have come to favour their own particular professional constituency. So long that is the trend, sorry to say, the upheaval will continue to rock the system. For example, in the last dispensation, the joint health sector union and the healthcare professional associations had issues and up till now they are unresolved. “Wither anybody want to accept it or not, until people are properly incentivized and multi acted they cannot give out their best that is the reality. The caregiver also needs to be taking care off. Once you gag people and deprive them of what they need wither work in a multi acted manner then you have problem in your hand even if you like bring equipment from heaven it is human beings that will operate those gadget to deliver result and if you don’t give those human beings what government has approved for them, then you have problem in your hands.

“Government should be guided by all these things and ensure that it doesn’t need to be a physician, it doesn’t need to be a health practitioners to administer health. Nigeria does not exist in the moon. You go to many countries in the world wither it is Europe, America or Asia, the health ministers and administrators are not healthcare professionals.

“We have seen it times without number and we have shown sufficient S evidence that when non health care professionals are at the helm in the health sector, we have a better and more stable sector.”

The Nation