After embarking on a 7-day warning strike, leaving many patients to their fate, health workers resumed back to work and actually had next to nothing to do. It seemed like the patients themselves were on some sort of strike as many of them stayed away from hospitals despite the resumption of the health workers.
This scenario played out visibly at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, as many patients stayed off even as most health workers resumed duty after the warning strike. Simply put, the turn out of patients was very low.
“Some health workers were seen on duty while few others clustered in groups, but just a few patients were seen at the Mobolaji House Accident Wards, while the Accident and Emergency Department was not as lively as before,” reported Vanguard.
Some of the patients who happened to be in the vicinity of the hospital showed mixed feelings as touching the resumption of the hospital after the seven days warning strike. Many of the patients on ground doubts that others might return immediately for medical care.
Uche, who happens to be a patient of the hospital and who spoke to reporters who came around said, “When they embarked on the strike, we were all discharged, but when the strike ended and I called the others to inform them, to my surprise, they said they were not ready to return due to instability in the system.’’
On another note, Mr Salau Abdullahi, another patient who had a bone fracture said it took more than four hours before he was eventually attended to despite tendering his hospital card as early as possible.
The reasons the health workers embarked on a 7-day strike was due to unpaid December 2016 salary, outstanding promotion arrears for the last two years and non-payment of three months teaching allowances.
The strike started on the 6th of March, 2017.
The hospital management politely refused to comment on the development. Speaking on behalf of the union, the Unit Secretary of NANNM, Alabi Temitope said that the Joint Action Committee gave the management two weeks to do the needful so as to avoid industrial disharmony in the hospital.
