How to replace doctors on strike: A fool, proof guide

By: Adeyomola Kazeem

Meanister: Oga, the doctors said they want their hazard allowance and PPE.

Oga: Did they come with guns?

Meanister: No.

Oga: Have they killed people continually for over a decade?

Meanister: No. Oga, on the contrary, they have been saving lives for decades.

Oga: Have they ever displaced a thousand families from their homes?

Meanister: Oga, no o. They even help make life easy for the displaced people.

Oga: Okay, Okay, how many people have they kidnapped in the last 5 years?

Meanister: Zero, Oga. Kidnap ke? These ones swore an oath to always be selfless. If their patients don’t eat, they won’t eat.

Oga: Sack all of them, all of them, we do not negotiate with people who are not terrorists. Such insolence. How do we know they are serious if they are saving lives and not destroying them? If they are not detonating bombs everywhere, how do they expect us to hear them and negotiate with them?

Oga: In 2023, we’ll set up a committee that will set up a committee that will come up with a master plan to replace these ones. My vision is to ensure that we can start selling medical degrees in traffic for free or for a fee. I’m thinking we should start with a promo that if people buy a B. Pharm, they should get MBBS or BNSc as jara.

Oga: And if you look properly gan, what are these medical people doing that Google can’t do. Is it not the same cosmetic surgery Dr. Sh-Anu is doing effortlessly? They will tell you that what she does kills. But it’s just all these opposition doctors that are always wailing. Look at the child of tea (omo-tea) for instance, the valley in her waist is where the indictment on Dr. Sh-Anu falls to waste. Don’t make a mistake, if she wears a waist trainer, the trainer is not training her waist, she is training the waist trainer on how to train waists.

Oga: Mr. Meanister.

Meanister: Oga.

Oga: Help me open my Instagram page. The @Oga_looking_away account.

Oga: Meanister, can you see what I’m saying? See all these skincare experts now. Boya we should set up a medical school on Instagram. Because see smooth skin now. It is quite creative that these experts give their potions other names asides the default name.

Meanister: Oga, what is the default name?

Oga: The default name is Filters na. You are not even very current. Such creativity with names cannot be replicated by these ones asking for better pay. Our administration will only remunerate creativity or at least we will promise to.

Oga: So Meanister, we already have Dermatologists and Surgeons. Let’s find replacements for another specialty.

Meanister: My Lord, may I? May I? May I narrate this story, my Lord?

Meanister: 15 years ago, before I became Meanister, I had this troubling backache and it was troubling me, sir. I went to many of these our government-owned hospitals but nothing healed me. They used to tell me to do an X-ray but the X-ray people used to give different excuses every day. Sometimes they will say the machine is not working. Other times, they will say there is no light and the gen. is not working. Until the day I entered one TATA bus, sir.

God sent this man to me because the drug he peddled was all-efficacious. He mentioned 30 diseases the drug was indicated for. I confirmed the potency when I used it on myself.

Oga: So, you are saying that we can use those ones as a replacement for the pharmacists?

Meanister: Exactly, Oga.

Oga: So, how do you think we can replace the Nurses?

Meanister: That one is very easy. If we search in many religious buildings, we will find midwives and maternity nurses. I have always wondered why we only employ people with tertiary school degrees. I even had one nurse that used to treat me 20 years ago. She used to give me chloroquine injection whenever I had malaria. The funny thing is, she could never spell chloroquine but did I die? So, we don’t even have to deliberate this thing.

Oga: That’s even good. We shall go with these suggestions. All these ones will not ask us to buy MRI machines or improve the operating rooms. I am suspicious that these ones on strike always that people fall sick so they can indict us when we don’t give in to their requests. They should go and ask how much they pay their colleagues in Cuba.

Oga: See let’s move to discussions about that expressway that has been under reconstruction since 1999. We need a new excuse, do you have an idea we can use?

Adeyomola Kazeem is the author of the chapbook titled The Octet Rule. He is a revered creative writer who enjoys infusing humour into as many of his works as possible. Notable among his honours and awards are the Pressman of the Year Award, PANS Press University of Ibadan; Longlist, Babishai Niwe Poetry Prize 2018; Joint Winning Poem, New Man Writing Contest; Winning Poem, PIN 10-day poetry challenge Issue 8; and a few more. He is a Pharmacist and a graduate of the University of Ibadan.