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PATIENTS GROAN AS DOCTORS WARNING STRIKE PERSISTS

THE effect of doctors ongoing nationwide strike is biting harder on the populace, and if care is not taken, it might spill over to 2014.

Patients in government hospitals have all left in frustration as there are no doctors to attend to them.

Even at the Accident and Emergency Ward, patients have been advised to seek alternative medicare in private hospitals as only nurses are attending to them.

A visit to Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi Araba, showed that resident doctors, consultants and even house officers have not been reporting at their duty posts.

Likewise at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, only nurses have been attending to patients.

Out patients have even been advised by the nurses on duty to come back after the strike or seek alternative medicare.

Responding to this development, Dr. Francis Fabiyile, the Nigeria Medical Association chairman, Lagos State branch, spoke with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Friday, December 20, 2013, in a phone chat.

“We are supposed to have a full blown strike but doctors have decided to have a warning strike because of the yuletide. But if by January 6, 2014, government does not heed our demand, we are going on an indefinite strike.

“We want the government to improve the health system in the nation.  We found out that the money allocated to the health sector is too low.  We also want a universal application of the national health insurance scheme, among other demands.”

ENCOMIUM Weekly also sampled the opinion of patients in LUTH and LASUTH on the ongoing strike.

 

OLADAPO ADEMOLA – “I came here to take my daughter to a private hospital.  Since the strike started, no doctor has attended to her and her condition is not improving at all. I went to source for money from family members and friends to take her to a private hospital close to our house.”

 

ADAOBI IFEANYI – “No doctor attended to us since I came here in the morning.  A nurse told me eventually that we should seek medical assistance elsewhere.”

 

OKOTE OGECHUKWU – “Help us appeal to the government.  ASUU has done theirs, now it is medical doctors.  People are dying.  One of our neighbour’s children died this morning because no doctor attended to them.  We don’t know where this country is headed, my sister.”

 

COKER AJIBIKE – “A nurse attended to my son in the morning, but we still need to see a medical doctor.  I don’t even know what to do because I don’t have money to take him to a private hospital.”

 

BAKARE ITUNU – “I think I will seek alternative means.  My sister wants to give birth and we have been told she will undergo Caesarean Section.  We are just in the Hands of God.”

 

BIMBO ODUNAYO – “My own is an appeal. Help us appeal to the government, the suffering is just too much.  Things have to change in this country.”

 

ROTIMI BISOYE – “I thank God that the ailment I came to treat is not too serious.  I wonder what I would have done, I feel for those who have emergency cases.”

 

IWU CHINWO – I only came here for antenatal and I have been attended to.  I pray the strike will not continue for long.  Things are getting really bad.”

 

ADEKOLA ANDREW – “It is really a pathetic situation.  I have been here with my brother since morning.  His son had an accident. I can’t even say the state in which the boy is now.  We were referred from a private hospital where he was taken to.  My sister, I am fed up with the whole system.”

 

Medical doctors in public hospitals complied with the directive of its national body, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), to embark on a five-day warning strike which commenced on Wednesday, December 17, 2013.  Patients were not treated by medical doctors, while those on admission were taken to private hospitals.

Doctors who belong to the various affiliates of the Nigeria Medical Association were not at their duty posts to attend to patients.  The five-day warning strike by doctors under the aegis of NMA is to improve poor working condition, inadequate funding and poor infrastructure in the nation’s health sector.

 –    SHADE WESLEY-METIBOGUN

Encomium

Written by Encomium

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