OWING to the indefinite nationwide strike embarked upon by health professionals under the aegis of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), some patients in Lagos State are experiencing hard times.

 

  When The Guardian visited the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi (NOHI), Lagos yesterday, the hospital premises was a like a graveyard as the premises was deserted by patients who used to throng to the hospital for bone-related cases.

 

  Various essential departments, including pharmacy, radiography, medical laboratory, physiotherapy and account, were under lock and key when The Guardian visited the hospital.

 

  Except for the few JOHESU executive officers on ground, members of the union, including nurses, were absent.

 

  Also, medical services at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dala, both in Kano metropolis, were yesterday paralysed as members of the joint health sector union joined strike.

 

  JOHESU had issued a three-day ultimatum after which it directed all members across federal health facilities in the country to discontinue duties for indefinite industrial action by midnight Wednesday to drive home their demands.

 

  All health workers in the health sector, excluding medical doctors, down their tools in compliance with the directive.

 

 A management official, who spoke with The Guardian on the condition of anonymity, stated that there was no way medical doctors in the hospital alone can handle the numerous medical cases in the hospital since “out of the over 1,000 members of staff in our hospital, the number of doctors is just about 100”, adding that “nurses alone are over 500.”

 

  In what has become a recurrent feature of strikes by the union members in recent times, source of electricity for the hospital and water supply were switch off by the striking health workers, a scenario that forced the hospital management to resort to a diesel-powered generator and reserved water to serve some of the patients on admission in various wards.

 

  The Guardian, however, learnt that the water in the reservoir could only serve the hospital for just two days. 

 

  At the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), the effect of the strike was less felt comparable to what is obtained in NOHI as some patients were seen around. But like NOHI, physiotherapy, radiography, medical laboratory departments owned by the hospital were not operational when The Guardian visited yesterday. Also, everywhere in the hospital outpatient department was in darkness.  

 

  A patient in one of the wards, who gave her name as Mrs. Falusi, told The Guardian that unlike what used to prevail in the hospital, no nurse was on ground to dress her wounds that morning, a situation, she said, had forced hospital wards to take over patient services in the hospital. 

 

  Meanwhile, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) was however different as health workers in the hospitals did not observe the strike. 

 

  A senior matron, who spoke with The Guardian on the condition of anonymity, said that that JOHESU members in the hospital have decided not to join the strike yet to allow time for the Federal Government to answer the union members in the federal service.     

 

  “But if the Federal Government does not answer the union members in the federal hospitals on time, we will be forced to join,” she said.

 

By Joseph Okoghenun