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Patients groan, urge quick end to impasse

By Paul Adunwoke
07 September 2017   |   4:26 am
New admissions were denied while the elderly ones, who refused to vacate the facilities, were offered skeletal services by consultant doctors and others not affected by the ongoing strike.

LUTH complex

• ‘We are dying slowly on a daily basis’

The nationwide industrial action has begun to affect patients negatively. Consequently, Nigerians have called on the Federal Government and the striking medical personnel to resolve their differences promptly, saying they were dying slowly on a daily basis.

When The Guardian visited the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and National Orthopedic Hospital Igbobi Lagos (NOHIL) yesterday, patients lamented the development, which had left them with no access to full medical care.

New admissions were denied while the elderly ones, who refused to vacate the facilities, were offered skeletal services by consultant doctors and others not affected by the ongoing strike.

Some of the patients at the accident and emergency unit of LUTH sought divine intervention on the issue. An inmate, Mrs. Kafayat Juwon, said: “We are dying slowly on a daily basis. It is quite unfortunate that it is at the time we need adequate medical services to enable us recover that doctors went on strike.”

At other wards in NOHIL, a good number of patients wallowed in self-pity, saying they had nowhere else to seek medical attention. They claimed their medical needs were peculiar.

One of them, who identified herself as Yetunde Akindele, confessed that she had been on admission for three months, adding that she was not in a hurry to relocate to any private hospital for financial reason.

The president of LUTH chapter of NARD, Dr. Adebayo Sekumade, submitted that his members were full compliant until their demands are met. He said: “We will not go back to our duty posts until our demands are met. We have been patient for a very long time.

“We do not have enough medical equipment to enable us take care of patients properly and there is no enabling environment here. There is no water and electricity for the success of our work.”

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