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). (PUNCH)
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