According to NAN reports, The Association of Resident Doctors, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) chapter,on Monday, June 29, began an indefinite strike over their working conditions.
According to President of the association, Dr Ramon Moronkola, the strike is coming after a 21-day ultimatum and three-day warning strike which ended on Wednesday, June 17. He added that the association was compelled to embark on strike after several appeals to management of the institution yielded no positive response.
“We are demanding for good working conditions which include making the environment conducive, as well as the implementation of the ‘skipping’ structure as directed by the federal government. Doctors have been stagnated for years; and on the skipping, since the 2013 directives by the FG, the management of LUTH has refused to obey. I am calling on the government to look into the situation in the hospital. There is no constant water supply in LUTH; this is dangerous because diseases, especially communicable ones, can further spread from both patients and doctors. The light situation is epileptic and the wards are in a sorry state; these need to be addressed urgently,’’ Moronkola said.
Dr Ayodele Renner, a resident doctor, said, “If we continue to keep quiet, LUTH will further degenerate to perhaps, just a consulting institution. There is a serious challenge in LUTH and we want the public and FG to step in, LUTH needs to be restructured. There is a great unavailability of consumables and a lot of times, we are not able to do investigations here, so they are outsourced. Doctors have had to buy consumables and writing materials on several occasions; drip stands are not even available.”
LUTH’s acting Chief Medical Director, Prof. Chris Bode, said that every industrial action had its pros and cons, adding that strikes were not the best ways to resolve challenges, especially when they had become incessant. He urged the resident doctors to be patient as the new administration would sort out many issues once they are fully settled.
