As the ongoing strike embarked on by the Nigerian Association of Medical Doctors enters its second day, doctors at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex in Ile Ife, Osun, have joined their counterparts across the country to register their displeasure to the Federal Government.
Consequently, only medical officers and some consultants offered skeletal services to patients.
In an interview, the President, Association of Resident Doctors, OAUTHC, Dr. Anthony Anuforo, urged the FG, to as a matter of urgency dialogue with the body.
He confirmed that members of the ARD-OAUTH Chapter fully complied with the directive of its national body to embark on the five-day warning strike.
“OAUTHC is a Federal Government hospital and our members are staff of the teaching hospital and we have to comply with the directive of the Association.
“The strike is fully in effect at OAUTHC. We implore the Federal Government to replace the doctors who resigned from all teaching hospitals,” he pleaded.
He explained that it takes about six to twelve months before a single doctor would be replaced and over 200 are leaving yearly.
Anuforo advised the Federal Ministry of Health to ensure that they come up with a policy that would make the replacement of doctors that left the service to be seamless and faster.
“The pressure has been too much on the remaining doctors. We are doing more than our capacity. Medical practitioners are leaving daily, travelling to where they would get green pastures.
“When we are doing much on work delivery, research and training suffer a lot, even nurses and other professionals are suffering too,” he said.
Also, the General Secretary, ARD-OAUTH, Dr. Ibukun Enesi, asked for the immediate withdrawal of the bill seeking to compel medical and dental graduates to render five-year compulsory services in Nigeria before being granted full licences to practise.
He noted that the doctors were also demanding an immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure to the tune of 200 per cent of the current gross salaries of doctors.
Enesi further said that part of their demands was for the immediate implementation of CONMESS, and domestication of the Medical Residency Training Act.
According to him, there was a need for a review of hazard allowance by all the state governments, as well as private tertiary health institutions where any form of residency training was done, among others.
A patient, Mrs. Tejumade Olayinka, said only consultants were attending to patients due to the resident doctors’ strike.
Olayinka appealed to the FG to dialogue with NARD in the interest of the masses who could not afford the cost of health care in private hospitals.
NAN/Oyenike Oyeniyi
