THE BRUTAL TRUTH ABOUT QUALITY AND EXCELLENT LEADERSHIP AND HEALTHCARE DELIVERY

The quest to build a quality and an excellent healthcare institution on a continental and national level should first be driven by the acceptance of the brutal truth that:

“every society is a direct reflection of the people living therein, never those living outside.”

Africans will continue to make the mistake of expecting quality and excellence from their leaders and healthcare professionals when they themselves are not living the life of quality and excellence or better still do not have those as their foundational values. The truth being that we cannot give what we do not have, no matter how we try. But we can make effort to be better at what we do by first of all paying attention to understand how life truly works.

By design, the society can be divided into the rich, the middle class and the poor. Think of this classification in terms of leadership, professional practice, and healthcare delivery. Let’s ask ourselves, who are the major people playing roles in the healthcare delivery system? The rich, the middle class or the poor? Remember that we cannot give what we do not have. But if at any given time there is need for a change, then the players will have to change their status by deliberately moving from the poor to middle class and from middle class to the rich.

This change has a direct impact on the working environment we have around us in the delivery process, whether in leadership or healthcare.

Think of healthcare facilities where healthcare delivery is topnotch, characterized by quality and excellent, you will observe that the drivers of such systems are intrinsically and extrinsically rich in their outlook on life and perceptions of things. They truly are able to do what they are able to do because of who they are.

People build environments. They are the ones to decide whether their environment will be built around quality and excellence. But before that, they must have been people of quality and excellence.

Could we say that Africans deserve to have deplorable environment for leadership and healthcare delivery?

Why is it that the best brains amongst us never stay but choose to leave?

Could it be that the only people left here are just the corrupt and a remnant of a righteous few who are always intimidated by the corrupt ones?

Could it be that we are reaping what we have sown with respect to human capital development and professional training?

I believe that the ball is in our court to decide who we want to be as a continent and then as nation states. But that will only be possible when we choose to accept the brutal truth of the nature of things and take the responsibilities that goes with the desire for a change. Until then, we die here blaming ourselves for things we could do for ourselves.