Patient and relations leaving the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital …on Wednesday.
The strike embarked upon by members of the National Association of
Resident Doctors has paralysed activities in public hospitals across the
country.
NARD had embarked upon the strike to force the Federal Government to pay arrears of salaries being owned the medical doctors.
Reports by some of our correspondents and the News Agency of Nigeria
revealed that more branches of the association had joined the strike.
Consequently, patients are being hit hard while relatives of some of
the sick are being forced to take their sick to private hospitals.
Resident doctors in Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Bauchi, Kwara states and Abuja
have joined the nation-wide strike called by their national body.
The NARD Chairman at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Dr.
Babatunde Babasanya, said on Wednesday that the doctors were seeking the
payment of salaries being owed them.
He also said the Federal Government’s implementation of the
Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System had not been
effective in spite of the fact that many doctors were short paid.
Babasanya said, “Some House Officers in Lagos have not been paid for
four months till recently when they paid them only two months.
“We have been paid as cooks; in a month some of us received N1,000, some N20,000 and some may not even receive at all.”
The NARD boss also said that the residency training programme had
come under severe challenges, especially in terms of under funding.
A NAN correspondent, who visited the tertiary health institution on
Wednesday, reports that consultants and other health workers were
attending to patients.
In Abeokuta, striking resident doctors at the Federal Medical Centre
appealed to the Federal Government to embrace dialogue in order to end
the strike.
The NARD president at the centre, Dr. Ibrahim Adewale, made the
appeal while speaking with journalists on Wednesday in Abeokuta.
Adewale, who noted that patients were always at the receiving end
whenever doctors embarked on strike, urged the two parties to resolve
the dispute.
A NAN correspondent, however, sighted a few consultants and other health workers on duty at the medical centre.
The Chief Medical Director of the centre, Dr. Dapo Sotiloye,
declined comments, saying “ it is between the doctors and the Federal
Government.’’
Some of the patients, who spoke in separate interviews, appealed to
the two parties to consider the plight of ordinary Nigerians.
One of the patients, Alhaji Fatai Salisu, lamented the attitude of
some nurses at the centre and appealed to the doctors to return to
work.
Mr. Dada Abiodun, whose wife was on admission prior to the strike, said he might relocate her to another hospital.
Also reacting to the strike, the Chairman, Nigerian Medical
Association, Kwara Chapter, Prof. Mikail Buhari, said the doctors were
committed to the full implementation of the strike option.
He said that the strike followed the expiration of a 21-day ultimatum earlier declared by NARD.
Buhari said members were directed to embark on the strike due to
“persistent unwillingness of the Federal Government to articulate a
comprehensive guideline for residency training.”
Also, medical activities were paralysed at the University Teaching Hospital Ilorin, Kwara State.
Our correspondent who visited the hospital on Tuesday observed that
many patients that trooped into the hospital for care oblivious of the
strike were surprised when none of the resident doctors attended to
them.
Though consultants at the hospital took over the responsibilities of
the striking resident doctors, it was obvious that they were overwhelmed
by the number of patients waiting for medicare.
Efforts by one of our correspondents to get the responses of the
UITH Chief Medical Director, Prof. Abdulwaheed Olatinwo and the Kwara
State Chairman, NARD, Dr. Dele Tajudeen proved abortive as their phone
numbers indicated they were switched off.
But the Kwara State Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association, Prof.
Olayinka Buhari, who is a consultant at UITH, said the consultants had
taken over the treatment of patients that were being attended to by the
striking doctors especially, those in critical conditions.
Also, doctors at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching
Hospital, Bauchi commenced strike in the early hours of Wednesday.
A Bauchi resident, Malam Auwal Bala, told NAN that he took his
pregnant wife to the hospital around 1am, but was told that doctors were
on strike, and advised was to move her to a private clinic.
In Lagos, only consultants offered skeletal services to patients in
all the public hospitals particularly those owned by the Federal
Government.
President of the association’s LUTH Chapter, Dr. Emeka Ugwu, told NAN in Lagos that they joined the strike on Wednesday.
A Consultant Psychiatrist at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital,
Dr. Olugbenga Owoeye, said that the resident doctors at the hospital
joined the strike at midnight on Tuesday.
In Abuja, resident doctors were on Wednesday conspicuously absent at their duty posts.
However, in some of the hospitals monitored in Abuja except for
National Hospital Abuja and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital,
Gwagwalada which were affected by the strike, doctors were seen
attending to patients.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has
expressed disappointment over the strike, saying that the action was
uncalled for as those issues brought by the association were already
being looked into.
Speaking through his special assistant on media and communications,
Mr. Dan Nwomeh, he said that the issues were currently being addressed
by a committee set up by the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.
However, the minister said that a meeting has been scheduled with all
the parties concerned including the minister of labour, Emeka Wogu on
Thursday (today).
