Patients who visited various public health facilities in Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria today for medical attention were not attended to as doctors in government hospitals began three days warning strike to demand for the implementation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Scale Structure, CONMESS for doctors in the state.
•Patients waiting for doctors at Orile-Agege General Hospital this morning
In several General Hospitals in the Lagos metropolis, patients were stranded as there were no doctors to attend to their needs while many were turned back by the nurses on duty.
At the General Hospital, Orile-Agege this morning, patients were seen but there was no doctor to attend to them. A nurse in the hospital said she was still hopeful that the doctors would report for work.
One of the patients, who preferred to be called Mr. Sam told P.M.NEWS that it was bad that the government refused to meet the demands of the doctors who attended to critical issues and work longer hours than necessary.
“Who do we blame, the doctors or the government who refused to fulfil its own obligation? Look at the crowd here this morning, a doctor will work for long hours and at the end, somebody will make promise and not fulfil its obligation. The government should just attend to the needs of these doctors,” he said.
Another patient, Mr. Friday Adere lamented the inability of the government to meet the needs of the doctors, while backing the strike, saying that their demands must be met.
When our reporter visited the Igando General Hospital on LASU-Igando Road, there was confusion among the patients and their relatives.
Patients and visitors to the hospital were informed that the hospital’s services had been suspended with only few of the staff explaining that doctors were on strike. Some of the patients who were earlier on admission were also relocating as at the time of this report.
Mr. Adeyinka Sunday, who told our correspondent that his wife had been on admission at the hospital for the past five days, lamented that the strike action had got him confused.
“Where do I go from here now? My wife was brought here in critical condition and she is just recovering. With this strike now, it means I must look for a private hospital where I would be made to begin afresh with the registration and admission process,” he lamented.
He, however, praised the doctors, saying they were very helpful to the plight of his wife which saw her health improving within a few days of their arrival at the hospital.
Mr. Sunday called on the government to urgently attend to the demands of the doctors in order not to jeopardise the lives and health of the residents of the state.
A patient who sat on the floor disillusioned was asking rhetorically where the doctors wanted him to go considering the exorbitant cost of accessing services of private hospitals.
None of the doctors was willing to speak with P.M.NEWS, but one of them explained that the warning strike was just the beginning of a long drawn battle with the state government.
“You can imagine the government attempting to enforce the ‘no work, no pay rule against us. This will never work. All we know is that our demands must be met,” the doctor maintained.
At the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital, large number of patients gathered to be attended to this morning but there was no doctor on duty. The few consultants available were overwhelmed by the large number of patients. They tried to do their best in the circumstance.
A nurse in the hospital told our correspondent that the doctors were not willing to attend to patients as they were on strike, saying that the consultants available could not do much.
At the General Hospital, Lagos, the situation was the same as there were no doctors to attend to patients.
At the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, activities were at the lowest ebb as patients were attended to except those that were on their discharge list.
Dr. Olumuyiwa Odusote, Chairman, Medical Guild, while speaking with P.M.NEWS said that the strike was on and it had commenced effectively, adding that they were trying to converge to hold a meeting on the way forward.
When asked about the skeletal service being rendered to some patients at the hospital, he said, “maybe they are those patients on the discharge list but I can tell you that the strike has commenced.
“What we are trying to do now is to converge here and hold a meeting on the way forward. Everybody you are seeing here are doctors and we are equally waiting for other doctors to come. It is after the meeting that we will be able to make known our resolution,” he said.
Tobi Dada who accompanied his 80-year old grandmother, Mrs. Ibrahim Fatimah, to the hospital for treatment, told P.M.NEWS that they got to LASUTH as early as 6:00 a.m. and that they were yet to be attended to as at the time of filing this report.
He said, “We got here as early as 6 am and we have not been attended to; though, we were not aware of the strike until we got here. A nurse came around to get her blood sample and she hasn’t gotten back to us and this is almost 10:00 a.m.”
Reacting to the strike, Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said the government had been meeting with the doctors, saying that several meetings were held with them last week to stop the strike.
“Even when we heard from text messages about it, we had a meeting with them up till about 10:30 p.m. last Wednesday before the Easter vacation. We appealed and I even begged them,” he said.
To break the ranks of the doctors, the Lagos State Government has vowed to ensure that doctors who embarked on strike were not paid their salaries throughout the period of the strike.
A circular from the Lagos State Head of Service, Adesegun Ogunlewe said the government would invoke section 43 (1) of the Trade Disputes Act to ensure that the doctors did not receive any salary through the period of the strike.
Section 43 (1) which the government wants to enforce reads: “Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or in any other Law where any worker takes part in a strike, he shall not be entitled to any wages or other remuneration for the period of the strike and any such period shall not count for the purpose of reckoning the period of continuous employment and all rights dependent on continuity of employment shall be prejudicially affected accordingly.”
Ogunlewe also said that in accordance with section 41 (1) and 42 (1) of the Trade Dispute Act, the doctors ought to have given the government 15 days notice before withdrawing their services from the people, saying breaching such conduct is punishable with imprisonment.
“It is also an offence under the Criminal Code Law of Lagos State 2011 for any worker to unlawfully do an act or omit to do an act which it is his duty to do and by which, act or omission, harm is caused to any person.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga, Eromosele Ehbomele, Jamiu Yisa & Bayo Adetu
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