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.”