By Lilian Okoro
Lagos – Some operators in the health sector have expressed mixed reactions to the proposed Federal Government’s plan to accept medical team from China to assist in the fight against Coronavirus (COVID-19).
They spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.
NAN reports that the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had on Friday at the Ministerial briefing on COVID-19, announced that an 18-man team of Chinese medical experts would soon come to support the country.
According to him, the medical team, comprising doctors, nurses and public health advisers, are coming to the country, courtesy of a group of Chinese companies working in Nigeria.
Speaking, the Medical Director, MercyWay Medical Centre, Ejigbo in Lagos, Dr Omogbohun Patrick, said the idea was a welcome development that needed to be accomplished.
Patrick said that China had experienced the Coronavirus disease outbreak and conquered it; as a result, they could come to provide Nigeria with firsthand information, drugs and management techniques they applied to succeed.
According to him, no country or individual has the monopoly of knowledge when it comes to medical scientific manipulations, saying that sharing of information/knowledge is a legitimate doctrine in medicine.
“It is a very good idea to share from the wealth of knowledge of those who have experienced the situation.
“China, being the first country to experience the virus outbreak and have succeeded in eradicating it, has given them the credit of possessing the required medical applications and knowledge of how best to combat the virus.
“Am optimistic that accepting medical team from China to assist in fighting the Coronavirus disease in the country will fasten the speed at which Nigeria will get out of the outbreak, just as they did in China,” Patrick said.
He, therefore, encouraged Nigerians to comply with the lockdown order and other directives, primarily meant to contain the spread of the virus as “Prevention is better than Cure”.
Also, a Medical Imaging Scientist, Dr Livinus Abonyi, described the idea of accepting Chinese medical team as a “controversial issue” that needed to be approached with high sense of diplomacy.
Abonyi, a Lecturer in the Department of Medical Radiography, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, University of Lagos College of Medicine, said it was not advisable to apply foreign medical manpower in the fight against Coronavirus as Nigerian medical experts were capable.
According to him, Chinese medical team coming into Nigeria means that they will invariably take advantage of us because there is no ‘free gift anywhere’.
He advised that Nigeria could accept medical instruments and equipment from China to be used by our indigenous medical experts rather than accepting medical manpower assistance from them.
“The idea of Nigeria calling for foreign intervention at every slightest issue may not help the country.
“If Chinese medical team are allowed into Nigeria; they will come, collect our blood samples, run tests and understand our genetic history and return back to their home country to do what they want with it at the detriment of our country.
“It will be better for Nigeria to accept their medical equipment and used them by ourselves in our Nigerian way.
“Because going by the information we are getting from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and what is obtainable in other countries, Nigeria is not doing bad in fight the against COVID-19,” he said.
Abonyi, however, advised Federal Government to look inward to see how some basic materials needed in the fight against the virus could be produced within the country.
According to him, basic materials like hand sanitisers and face masks can be produced in Nigeria in large quantity for everyone to use and, even export to other countries.
Contributing, Mrs Rose Mordi, the President, DownSyndrome Foundation of Nigeria (DSFN), said that high level of sanitation and social distancing were what the country needed most at this period.
Mordi said that strict adherence to sanitation and social distancing would go a long way in reducing number of confirmed cases, thereby augmenting the efforts of Nigerian health workers for more improved and positive results.
She, however, enjoined all Nigerians to draw closer to God, saying that the present health emergency situation called for God’s intervention and mercy.
(NAN)
