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By Dorcas Elusogbon
Resident doctors at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex in Ile Ife, Osun, on Wednesday, joined the five-day warning strike called by the association’s national executives.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that consequently only medical officers and some consultants offered their services and attended to patients.
In an interview with NAN, Dr Anthony Anuforo, the President, Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife Chapter, urged the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency dialogue with the body.
Anuforo said that members of the ARD-OAUTH Chapter fully complied with the directive of its national body that called out its members to embark on 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.
The President 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 Ministry of Health to ensure that they come up with a policy that would make the replacement of doctors who have left 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 suffers 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.
Enesi said 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.
He 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 need for 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.
One of the Patients who spoke with NAN, Mrs Tejumade Olayinka, said that only Consultants were attending to patients due to the resident doctors’ strike.
Olayinka appealed to the Federal Government to dialogue with NARD in the interest of the masses who could not afford the cost of health care in private hospitals.
NAN reports that resident doctors embarked on five-day warning strike that began on Wednesday.
(NAN)
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