Patients in various hospitals have decried the lingering strike action embarked upon by health workers under the umbrella of the Joint Health Sector Unions across the country, expressing disappointment over government’s alleged seeming inaction.
They decried alleged government inability to take steps aimed at ending the health workers’ strike.
Strikes by health workers in Nigeria have become a recurrent decimal, as they see it as the most effective weapon for them to press home their demands for good salary and conducive work environment.
Findings showed that patients seeking healthcare services but unable to afford expensive private care, especially those who are in dire need of urgent medical attention, are the most affected by the ongoing strike.
Many patients, it was learnt, have, therefore, resorted to seeking alternative means to get treatment, which may further expose their lives to danger.
Our correspondent, who visited some hospitals in Lagos to ascertain the effect of the current strike action by the health workers, observed long queues of patients at all the units of the health facilities.
Some of the patients said that although doctors were attending to patients, they were rendering their services at a very slow pace unlike what obtained before the health workers went on the ongoing strike.
A fifty two-year-old diabetes patient, Mr. Elijah Uche, said he had been waiting for about five hours to see his doctor for treatment.
Uche said, “It is so unfortunate that my appointment had to be today. I came very early to see my doctor at LUTH, only for me to see a long queue of patients trying to see him. When I asked why the long queue, I was told that other health workers, except doctors are on strike.
“I came here 10:00 in the morning and this is 3 o’clock and I am yet to see a doctor. I think I will have to go home and then come back tomorrow, very early in the morning, so that I can leave in time.”
Another patient, who pleaded anonymity, expressed regrets for coming to LUTH because she had only wasted so much time, without achieving any result.
She said, “Though my case isn’t an emergency case, I would need a qualified laboratory scientist to diagnose what brought me to LUTH this morning.
“My prayer is that my case should not get worse before they call-off the strike.”
The National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, was deserted when our correspondent visited the facility during the week. Though few doctors were seen attending to patients, many of them were still left unattended to because of the limited number of health personnel on duty.
A patient, who simply gave his name as Seyi, said that because of the strike action, his physiotherapy session at the hospital had been put on hold, adding that her health had been deteriorating because of the strike action.
“See what, we, patients are going through. Without the nurses, the doctors cannot operate. The strike looks as if the entire public health sector in the country had been shut down,” he said.
A doctor at the hospital, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed that the strike action had paralysed activities at the centre.
He noted that because of the strike, doctors could only do little, but expressed optimism that it would soon be called off.
At the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State, many patients could also not be attended to by the medical personnel. Family members, who had brought some of their relations to the hospital for treatment for various ailments, said that they were already planning to move their loved ones out of the hospital.
They added that doctors at the hospital were only attending to emergency cases, even as new patients were no longer being admitted.
JOHESU National Chairman, Comrade Biobelemoye Josiah, told our correspondent that the strike had been complied with in all the federal health institutions nationwide.
Josiah noted that the union embarked on the current strike because the government had failed to fulfill the agreement they both signed since September 30, 2017, which should have been implemented five weeks after the day they signed the agreement.
He said, “It is six months now that the government did not see the reason to fulfill its own side of the bargain. We also gave government a 21-day ultimatum as at February this year, and they did not also seize that opportunity to do the needful to avert the strike action. We, for the sake of Nigerians, gave another ultimatum for 30 working days, yet the government did not do any tangible
thing.
“Even when we narrowed our demand to just one, which is the adjustment of COHESS for health workers, and if we can achieve that, we can then give the government sometime to fulfil other demands, which are revamping the infrastructure in the tertiary health institutions and report of the inter-ministerial sub-committee on critical matters in the health
sector.
“Our others demands are Enhancement of Entry Point (EEP) for medical laboratory scientists and radiographers and payment of backlog of arrears. Even when we narrowed our demands, as I said, to the implementation of adjusted CONHESS salary structure, government still fails to fulfill its own side of the bargain. So we have no other choice than to embark on the strike.”
