The Association of Resident Doctors, ARD, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) chapter yesterday commenced an indefinite strike over their working conditions at the hospital.

 

The President of the association, Dr Ramon Moronkola, said that this was sequel to a 21-day ultimatum and three-day warning strike which ended on Wednesday, June 17.

 

He spoke at a rally/press conference organised by the ARD at the hospital in Lagos.

According to him, the association was compelled to embark on strike after several appeals to the management of the institution yielded no positive response.

 

He said, “the purpose of the strike is not to punish the patients, but to press home some legitimate demands. Consultants and some health workers are still attending to patients, but we, as an association, need to send out a message because we are tired of giving haphazard services to the public.

 

“Some individuals are running this institution any how they like; they would not do this were it to be their private practices. We have bent backwards severally to ensure that we continue service delivery, however, when the person at the helm of affairs thinks that we are wasting our time, then the public should task them.

 

“We are demanding for good working conditions which include making the environment conducive, as well as the implementation of the ‘skipping’ structure as directed by the Federal Government.’’

 

According to him, there have been several instances where doctors have been harassed by patients’ relatives for non-delivery or delayed delivery of some services without knowing it is an institutional problem.

 

“Doctors have been stagnated for years; and on the skipping, since the 2013 directives by the FG, the management of LUTH has refused to obey. I am calling on the government to look into the situation in the hospital.

 

“They should come and investigate; we cannot allow a public institution like this to be at the mercy of just some individuals; in places where there is industrial disharmony, questions should be asked.

 

“There is no constant water supply in LUTH; this is dangerous because diseases, especially communicable ones, can further spread from both patients and doctors. The light situation is epileptic and the wards are in a sorry state; these need to be addressed urgently,’’ Moronkola said.

 

Dr Ayodele Renner, a resident doctor, said, “If we continue to keep quiet, LUTH will further degenerate to perhaps, just a consulting institution. There is a serious challenge in LUTH and we want the public and FG to step in, LUTH needs to be restructured.

 

“There is a great unavailability of consumables and a lot of times, we are not able to do investigations here, so they are outsourced. Doctors have had to buy consumables and writing materials on several occasions; drip stands are not even available.

 

“The clearing process is also ridiculously long as people can be on the queue for as long as four hours to get a payment done.’’

Renner said that the ‘skipping’ as approved by the Federal Government had not been paid to resident doctors.

He expressed concern that after the 21-day ultimatum and three-day warning strike, the management was yet to do anything to bridge the situation.

 

Similarly, Dr. Folasade Ewedemi, one of the members, said “It is important that the working conditions be improved in addition to the compliance of the `skipping’.

 

 

“In LUTH, so many facilities are no longer functional and we need to cry out now before it further degenerates. The recording and filing system is poor, the CT scan machine is not functional and even bottles for investigations are not available. Patients have to travel out of LUTH to get these done and one can begin to imagine the risks involved.’’

Ewedemi said that there have also been security breaches at the health facilities with doctors and patients being harassed and attacked.

 

“People have come in severally to attack patients and doctors, doctors have been attacked at the lounge. At a point, they had come to the pediatrics department where you have babies in incubators; imagine the trauma for mothers,’’ Ewedemi said.

 

In his reaction, LUTH’s acting Chief Medical Director, Prof. Chris Bode, said that every industrial action had its pros and cons.

He, however, noted that strikes were not the best ways to resolve challenges, especially when they had become incessant.

 

According to him, the management met and pleaded with the association many times to show understanding on their demands.

Bode appealed to the resident doctors to be patient as the new administration would sort out many issues once they are fully settled.

 

Meanwhile, President of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) Steve Oluwole, yesterday called on all Resident Doctors who are currently on strike across the country demanding for skipping salary adjustment to suspend their strikes.

 

Oluwole ,who made the call while responding to questions from journalist in Abuja, further called on Medical Consultants in all the branches across the country to restore services in all specialties with the full complement of staff assigned to them to discharge their duties.

 

He said that MDCAN adopts the directive of the NMA that skipping for doctors should subsist as contained in relevant circulars from the federal government and that government should provide unified framework for the implementation of skipping in tertiary hospitals if it is willing or unable to abolish it as initially demanded by the NMA.

 

While lamenting on the effect of the delay of President Muhammadu Buhari to form his cabinet, MDCAN President said, “the only thing that constrained us is that structure of government is not in place. We don’t have ministers, no Attorney General of the Federation and all of that. So, once that is in place, you can be sure within hours, we will activate our own processes. We are concerned because most of the issues we want to raise, we can’t do it.  And we took consideration of some of the dynamics in our political system.”

 

Oluwole however noted that in the United Kingdom for example, even if it is a new party that changes to the other, things move smoothly within few hours. So, we can’t say that it is a new party coming in that is why.

 

“I want to appeal to the president to expedite action. It becomes indefensible in our own democracy that this vacuum is created. When we watch the way our own democracy works, with the fights and dramas and all of that, then I can have some understanding that the president is having issues about who to appoint.”

 

Commenting on the criteria of the person to be appointed as the next minister of health, Oluwole said: “I think the best person that should be there, not only that he should be a doctor, he must have basic medical qualifications. He must have post graduate qualifications; he must be a trained administrator. 

This is because he is serving multiple purposes because he automatically becomes the chief medical adviser to the president and there is no way of replicating that.”

 

By: Champion News