LUTH resident doctors shun new patients, sustain strike
Resident doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, are turning back new patients seeking medical attention, as their strike entered its seventh day.
The Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) at LUTH embarked on the strike last week Thursday, November 29, to protest over three months’ salaries and allowances delay.
Although some of the doctors are offering skeletal services, these are available only to patients on admission at the teaching hospital. New cases are either asked to go back, or given the option to wait for a patient on admission to be discharged before they can be attended to.
“We have been turned back because of the strike, but my husband is very sick,” a woman who brought her husband told BusinessDay. “They said the only help they can render to us is for us to wait for a patient to be discharged then there will be a bed space to accommodate my husband,” the woman explained, “I don’t have anywhere else to go because I cannot afford the private hospitals, I do not have a choice, I will wait.”
A man, who was driving out of LUTH gate with a sick woman in his car, said: “We have been told that there is no space. So, we have to go because the more we are delayed, the more her condition deteriorates.” He said they were heading to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).
The LUTH chapter of NARD said they gave a 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Government at the start of the strike to address their grievances, but noted that a week after, there had not been any concrete response from the government.
“There have not been any form of official calls from the government to discuss what the ways forward are or developing stories as related the late salaries,” Olawale Oba, ARD president, said in an interview.
Oba alleged that the Budget Office claimed that there was no money to pay salaries because the allocation for LUTH for 2018 had been exhausted. “I think the solution is to ensure that the government agency in charge – that is the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office in Abuja – pay salaries when due, then this problem comes to an immediate end as soon as it is resolved,” Oba said.
This strike has generated a lot of dynamics, because in the middle of it, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, LUTH chapter, has also protested against the non-attendance of emergencies, and also threatened to shut down the outpatients’ clinic, he said.
The situation has robbed the hospital of its usual busy nature. “Some of the doctors are around in the hospital, while some did not even bother to show up, hence the hospital is in disarray,” a doctor there who does not want to be identified, said.
He wondered why the Federal Government “always toils with the Health Sector,” which, according to him, is a very sensitive sector. “Until the government sits up and we get it right this vicious circle of embarking on strike will not stop and better healthcare services cannot be delivered in this country,” he said.