Patients groan as doctors’ strike bites harder
Efforts by the Federal Government to end the strike embarked upon by
the Nigerian Medical Association have failed to yield any result.
Consequently, consulting rooms in hospitals in Ilorin,
Ibadan, Benin, Lagos, Jos, Calabar, Osogbo, Asaba, Enugu and Kaduna
visited by our correspondents on Thursday were still bare as doctors
refused to attend to patients.
One of our correspondents learnt
that the Health Minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu who met with the
officials on Thursday, had yet to reach an agreement with them.
Negotiations and horse trading to end the strike commenced again as
Chukwu returned to the country. However, efforts to reach the minister
and the NMA President Dr. Kayode Obembe, failed as they neither picked
their calls nor responded to text messages sent to them.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives intervened in the strike by
medical doctors on Thursday, urging the health personnel to suspend the
action.
In a resolution in Abuja, it directed the Committee on
Health to look into the grievances of the doctors by holding a meeting
with the leadership of the NMA within one week.
The lawmakers
noted that people who were injured or needed urgent medical care from
Boko Haram attacks could die if there were no doctors to attend to them.
They also observed that many sick people and women in labour could
suffer untold hardship if the strike was allowed to continue.
Meanwhile, Nigerians have begun to count their losses as the strike
action called by the Nigerian Medical Association enters its fourth day.
Despite skeletal medical services offered by some of the public
hospitals across the country, reports of deaths and abandonment have
trailed the action.
In an email to The PUNCH, a Nigerian, Sahr
Kaingbanja, recounted the death of his brother and rained curses on the
striking doctors. “I just lost a brother now as a result of Nigeria so
call doctors going on strike Nigeria doctors are inhuman it will never
go down well with all the doctors and Nigeria Government,” he lamented.
At the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, on Thursday,
patients could not assess treatment as doctors had downed tools. While
activities at other departments were in full swing, it was not so at the
consulting rooms.
Speaking to our correspondent, the Public
Relations Officer, Mrs. Hope Nwawolo, said the doctors were left with no
choice but to comply with the directives from the NMA.
“They have to comply with their national body. We are not taking any new emergency case at all,” she said.
But the scenario was a sharp contrast at the Jos University Teaching
Hospital, as management sent all patients home . The Deputy Chairman of
the Medical Advisory Committee, Dr. Patricia Wade, who spoke to newsmen
in Jos said that the doctors have refused to go to work as a result of
the industrial action.
Wade said, “We had to ask the patients
to go home, especially those with less severe cases. The consultants are
however on ground to attend to emergencies and those on critical
condition.
7/04/2014
Patients groan as doctors’ strike bites harder
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