Health workers strike grounds UCH

The University College Hospital, Ibadan, has stopped admitting new patients as the effect of strike embarked upon by the Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals nationwide and the hospital’s resident doctors takes its toll on the hospital.

NUAHP began its strike on Monday after the seven-day ultimatum it issued to the Federal Government expired while the resident doctors have been on strike for three weeks.

When our correspondent visited the hospital on Tuesday, he observed that pharmacists, physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, radiographers, dieticians, dental technologists, optometrists, clinical psychologists, medical social workers and all other health professionals, except some doctors and nurses, were not rendering medical services to patients.

Efforts to reach the hospital’s Chief Medical Director, Temitope Alonge, failed as he was said to be in a meeting but a source in the hospital, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to speak for the hospital, said Internally Generated Revenue had dropped considerably and that the wards were becoming empty.

“With the two strikes coming at the same time, we cannot admit patients and what this means is that the hospital IGR has dropped. Clinical services have been shut down and medical students’ training cannot go on. Research work has also suffered. There is no consultant that can work effectively because what we now have are nurses and administrative workers,” she said.

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Chairman of UCH branch of NUAHP, Olusegun Sotiloye, told our correspondent on Tuesday that before taking the decision, several attempts to discuss the situation with the Minister of Health failed.

Sotiloye said, “We gave the Federal Government a seven-day ultimatum from May 11, 2015. It expired last Sunday, which necessitated the nationwide strike embarked upon by union on Monday.

“What we decided is that we will observe sit down approach in the first week. Our members will be coming to work but they will not render any service except when there is an emergency. If we do not get FG’s attention, we will begin full scale strike in the second week.

“Before we went on strike, we tried to reach out to the Minister of Health but he said he was out of the country and that he would mandate the Minister of State for Health and the ministry’s permanent secretary to do something but that is all we got. None of them called back till now.”

The union, among other demands, wants the promotion of its members, who have spent 15 years on CONHESS 14 and designate the most senior one as a director or head of department.

It also wants members to be appointed Chief Medical Directors of various tertiary hospitals rather than reserving it for medical doctors.