Posted on: Sat 20-08-2016

The Senate Committee on Health yesterday moved to avert a looming indefinite strike by the resident doctors at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) over alleged poor funding and working condition of doctors in the institution.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Lanre Tejuoso, who addressed a delegation of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), ABUTH, in Abuja, urged the body to submit a comprehensive report of its grievances to the committee, with a view to proffering a lasting solution to the matter.

NARD had paid a courtesy visit on the committee to bring to its attention the high level of rot in the tertiary healthcare institution, resulting from the poor funding of the establishment by the government.

The doctors told the committee that they had held a one-week protest to draw the attention of government to their plights, alerting that they would embark on a three-day warning strike on Monday.

The medical practitioners, however, said that if nothing was done after the warning strike by the management of the hospital to address their demands that they would not hesitate to embark on an indefinite strike.

In his submission to the committee, the Chairman of the NARD, ABUTH, Dr. Waziri Aliyu, lamented that the sanitary condition of the hospital was deplorable while there was no fund to provide basic medical facilities in the place.

He said: “There are a lot of issues that affect the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital and we feel that by interaction with the people here (in the Senate), most of our grievances would be sorted out.

“First of all our grievances is the issue of environmental sanitation as well as facilities in the hospital. There was an incident that happened in the hospital when one of our members was bitten by a snake.

It was really sad because up to 36 hours after the incident, the management could not do anything. “The association felt very bad about it and it is something that we’ve been complaining about in the hospital.

The sewage system in the hospital is something that is really terrible. “As simple as cotton wool and (mentholated) spirit, we ask patients to provide. I think this is the height of it.”

He also lamented alleged illegal sacking of doctors by the management, poor remuneration, and non availability of accommodation for staff that should be resident, insecurity and poor working environment in the hospital. Aliyu warned that if samples in the laboratories were to be contaminated, the results of tests would be erroneous and this would pose a great danger to the patients, doctors and the hospital authorities.

He also decried the poor condition and non-availability of equipment in the hospital, saying the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine in the facility had been faulty for 46 months, while patients were being referred to other hospitals.

“As little as X-ray is, we’ve been having problems with it. There is only one machine and whenever it breaks down, it becomes a problem,” he lamented. A member of the committee, Senator Shehu Sani, who represents Kaduna Central where ABUTH is situated, in his remark, said the condition of ABUTH was a reflection of the true state of the country’s health care system.

He stated that with the current economic downturn, there was the need for Nigeria to have a functional public health sector to check capital flight.He berated public officials who travel abroad for medical treatment, saying: “It is unfortunate, ironical and contradictory, for public officials to rate themselves high in the development of the healthcare sector but refuse to patronise the sector when they need medical services.”

Sani said further: “It is quite unfortunate that when Gen. Sani Abacha took office, he referred to our hospitals as mere consulting clinics. I wish they were ‘mere consulting clinics’ now. Things have gone really bad.

And I don’t see the possibility of getting our public healthcare system back on track if public office holders don’t patronise public hospitals.” In his response, Tejuoso said ABUTH’s problems were not different from what was obtainable in other public health care institutions across the country.

He urged the doctors to pay more attention to how monies allocated to ABUTH were spent than strike action, while asking them to file a comprehensive report to the Senate on their grievances.

Tejuoso said: “The main problem we are having is the mismanagement of funds allocated, which I think you should give more attention as an association. When they (ABUTH management) came to defend their (2016) budget, I am sure they did not have your inputs.”

The legislator urged the doctors to have a discussion with management of the hospital on the implementation of the budget, to ensure that there was no misapplication or mismanagement of funds

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