Our strike not about ego –Doctors
The Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos State, Dr. Francis Faduyile, has verbalized that the perpetual doctors’ strike in the country is not about ego.
The striking medicos have been openly criticised by some members of the public, who verbally expressed their authoritative ordinances had to do with ego, but the NMA chairman confuted such claim.
Faduyile, who verbalized with Saturday PUNCH on Thursday, verbally expressed the industrial action was compulsory to preserve the country’s ailing health sector.
He verbalized, “Why should we be rubbing ego with other professionals? Why should we be doing that? Everything in life has got rules and standards, so the other professionals cannot just transmute the rules all of a sudden.
“And if you must transmute the rule, you transmute the rule for every sector within that area. So, it is not an ego thing. They are the ones endeavoring to take all the privileges of a medical medico and they don’t want to go to medical school. They optate to disrupt the whole system in health and we verbally express ‘no, you can’t do it.’ In other climes, we don’t have such. If they optate to be director because of their PhDs, they should go to the secretariat.”
When asked if the strike was justified considering that many patients would suffer as majority of the country’s citizens can only afford regime hospitals’ bills, Faduyile verbalized, “That is why we are telling the regime that the issue is engendering chaos in the hospitals. When patients optically discern 23 directors in the hospitals, even the patients will be discombobulated themselves. It is a diversion.
“If you come to the hospital and you optically discern cubicles for consultant nurse, consultant pharmacist, consultant physiotherapist, consultant medical laboratory scientist, and another one that verbally expresses consultant cleaner. We are verbalizing that the already deplorable situation should not be made worse. If we let it get loose, we will be playing with the lives of patients. We will ascertain that the hospitals are devoid of politics.”
Meanwhile, there is no headway yet in negotiations between the association’s national body and the Federal Regime.
Speaking on the issue, Faduyile verbalized, “Our national bellwethers are discussing with the regime but there has been no headway yet. There is nothing major for now so the strike perpetuates in the hospitals.”
The NMA on Tuesday commenced an indefinite nationwide strike in all regime hospitals to press for 24-point demands, which include the discontinuation of apperception of non-medical medicos as directors and having consultant denomination for any other health worker other than medical medicos.
Also, the medicos are asking for the appointment of a Surgeon-General of the Federation, payment of clinical obligation and hazard allowances and withdrawal of the Central Bank of Nigeria circular on medical laboratory equipment, among other demands.
During a visit to some regime hospitals in Lagos, including the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, our correspondent observed that patients were still being turned back while only skeletal accommodations were offered to a few patients that remained in the wards.
A patient at the LASUTH, Mrs. Alimat Oni, left the hospital after futile wait of about five hours for a medico.
She verbally expressed, “I was asked to go for some tests last week and now that the results are out, I could not visually perceive a medico today, which is my appointment date. A nurse asked me to wait that someone would attend to me but after waiting for about five hours, I decided to depart. I will have to visit a private hospital.
