Steve Dada
6 January 2009
Lagos — As doctors' strike in Lagos State enters the second day yesterday, fewer patients were seen seeking healthcare in most government hospitals in the state.
At the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), very few patients were seen at the emergency and intensive care units of the hospital at about 9a.m. when THISDAY visited.
Ordinarily, patients troop into the hospital in thousands, but due to the hardship they experienced on Monday when the strike commenced, most of them decided to seek medical solutions in private hospitals.
However, few who could not afford private hospitals decided to visit the teaching hospital, and were seen being attended to by doctors in training, lending complementary services to consultants and Heads of Department (HOD), who took charge since Monday.
At Orile-Agege, Isolo and Gbagada general hospitals and other government-owned health institutions in the state, the situation was the same.
However, officials of Ministry of Health have been blamed for failure to dialogue with members of Medical Guild, forcing them to choose strike as the last resort.
State chairman of factional group of the Medical Guild, Dr Ibrahim Olaifa, said this yesterday in an interview, after emergency meeting of members at LASUTH to appraise the strike.
He said Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, did not help matters, having been given enough time to resolve the problem.
Meanwhile, the state Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has appealed to the doctors to call the strike off and promised that all their grievances would be looked into.
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