Patients groan as doctors’ strike cripples FCT hospitals

Patients at the Abuja district hospitals have lamented that the strike by the Association of Resident Doctors, Federal Capital Territory, is affecting them.

Some hospitals’ departments visited by our reporters on Tuesday offered no services; while others rendered skeletal services.

The resident doctors’ association embarked on an indefinite strike on Tuesday over non-payment of its members’ salaries. At the Asokoro District, Kuje District and Wuse District Hospitals, patients complained there were no doctors to attend to them.

Our reporters observed that at the Kuje District and Wuse District Hospitals, there was a lull at many departments that were usually crowded. Pregnant women were sighted waiting to be attended to at antenatal department of the Kuje District Hospital.

At the Asokoro District Hospital, a man, who simply identified himself as Suleiman, brought his daughter for appendicitis surgery, but returned home unattended to. Some patients told our reporters that they were not aware of the strike until they reached the hospitals.

Meanwhile, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, the president of the resident doctors’ association, Ronald Aigbove, called on the FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, to look into the issues that led to the strike Aigbovo said members of the association had been thrown into serious financial distress owing to the non-payment of their salaries.

Telephone calls by one of our reporters to the General Manager, FCTA Hospital Management Board and the Public Relations Officer, Health and Haman Services Secretariat of the FCTA were not answered as of the time of filing this report.  (Daily Trust)