Red wine, dinner and a tale of three doctors

The other day Basirat was on the phone, inviting you to dinner.

Basirat is an ophthalmologist, and the President of the Rotary Club, Gbagada. Back when you were CMD of the local teaching hospital, you groaned mentally whenever her name showed up on your phone pad, because invariably it meant she wanted a favour for someone who was ill, usually someone she did not know from Adam. You had been classmates from medical school in Ibadan, and so great was her passion for taking care of everyone that your other classmates called her ‘mama class’.

This time Basirat’s phone call was because she wanted you to join in a celebration she was organizing for two members of her Rotary Club who had recently been elevated in public service. Professor Tokunbo Fabamwo’s appointment as Chief Medical Director of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital had just been announced, and Dr Tayo Lawal, another member of the chapter, had just been appointed Permanent Secretary in the Primary Healthcare Board.

The notice was short, so the negotiation was vigorous.

‘I’ll just be there to drink the wine and eat your rice’ you declared. ‘No high table. No speeches.’

She agreed to your terms, though she had rather hoped that, as you had more than a passing familiarity with both men and the positions they were going into, you would be keen to say ‘a few words’.

You assured her you had no intention to sing for your supper.

The deal was sealed.

Entering the venue, the Alvan Ikoku Hall at the Radisson Blu hotel, Ikeja GRA, you were immediately swept up in the convivial atmosphere. The two honorees were there with their families, as were the Rotary crowd, many of whom you knew. There was a pleasant surprise sitting at the Lawals’ table, in the form of the pert, dainty figure of Dr Titi Goncalves, the newly appointed Permanent Secretary in the Lagos State Ministry of Health, who was there as a guest of her fellow Permanent Secretary.

‘How’s the Ministry?’ you quipped.

‘As you left it’ she replied, without hesitation.

She was an orthodontist, and the exchanges you had had with her while in office pertained to efforts to build momentum foran Oral Health Policy for Lagos State, which she once championed.

In your mind’s eye you could see her sitting in your old corner office high up in the Ministry. You had liked to swivel round in your chair to survey the frenetic activity on the ground in Alausa all the way to the Ikeja Mall through the venetian blinds. Sometimes as day turned to dusk and there were still a pile of files on the table, as well as all manner of people waiting to see you in the ante-room, you felt the weight of the whole world resting on your shoulders, because you were not going to leave until all the work was done. Even getting your friend Bimbo of LEATHERWORLD to liven up the interior of the office virtually pro bono did little to lighten the weight at these times.

But of course, that was only part of the story. The real story was the pleasant, even exhilarating feeling you got from day to day that you were affecting the lives of many people positively, most of whom you would never get to meet in real life.

The wine was good, the food excellent.

As the evening wore on, the President stepped up to give her address. She was at her gracious, affable best.

The citations of the honorees were read.

Lawal’s was a grass to grace story. He was an orthopedic surgeon from a humble background who had gone to great pains to develop himself beyond the strict requirements for clinical practice. He had attended several management training courses locally and internationally, often at his own expense. He had been Medical Director of the General Hospital, Gbagada before his new appointment. It was no wonder that his fellow Medical Directors in the other General Hospitals across the State recognized him as a primus inter pares and made him Chairman of their Association. He had a mild manner that belied a steely inner resolve.

Fabamwo’s citation was read by Dr Ayodele, a young, baby-faced neurosurgeon who had come into LASUTH as a trainee and grown into the system. He was himself a member of the Gbagada Rotary chapter and was clearly very popular. He was hailed left and right as he moved forward to perform his task.

The Professor was a widely accomplished man. He was Chairman of the Yoruba Tennis Club. He had won several awards. His team had invented a surgical technique for dealing with uterine fibroids that was internationally recognized. Becoming Chief Medical Director of LASUTH was, for him, a case of the chickens coming home to roost. He had been there at the inception of the Teaching Hospital in 2001, and all through the rocky beginning as you managed a nascent hospital of limited means that was trying to punch above its weight. It had a focus on Emergency Services and later Heart Surgery, and quickly established a reputation on the national scene.

Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps it was the general conviviality, but you eventually got up to speak. Basirat was clearly delighted.

You would talk not just about two doctors who had achieved great heights in their careers and were being honored here, but about three doctors who had reached the commanding heights of healthcare in the state of Lagos, the pacesetter for the nation, and who were going to play major roles in taking the health of Lagosians to the next level.

You went on to tell the swank Gbagada Rotarians and their guests a story many of them already knew – that you and the new CMD had been secondary school classmates, that he had been your deputy when you were CMD, that he had participated in setting up much of the structure and organization that persisted till today, that there was unfinished business to be done in the project to give the people of Lagos a teaching hospital of their own, befitting of their status and ambitions.

About the Permanent Secretary who was going to handle Primary Health Care, you reiteratedthe fact that Primary Health Care was the missing link in Nigerian healthcare, and that – with the advent of two initiatives – the Basic Healthcare Provision fund which would mandatorily make available one percent of Nigeria’s national expenditure for basic health, a full half of which would go to primary care, and the commencement of compulsory basic health insurance in Lagos State, he would have his hands full, and his creativity would be fully exercised – hopefully for the good of all.

And as for lady, who would be working from your old corner office, you trusted that she saw what you used to see as the reward for those long hours – the joy of improving the lives of people, even if by a tiny notch at a time.

Oh – there was music, and dancing.

Fabamwo took the microphone and began to belt out a highlife piece – ‘Oni dodo, oni moin moin…’

Quietly you made your way out.

Femi Olugbile