Newly employed doctors by
the Lagos State government assumed duty yesterday in some of the hospitals in
the state, just as the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria,
NARD, condemned the sack of 788 doctors by the state government.
Sources at the Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, however, said not all the doctors that
reported for orientation last Thursday turned up for work yesterday.
The new doctors were reportedly
assigned to various government hospitals but National Mirror investigation
revealed that the development had not impacted much as the hospitals visited by
our correspondents only rendered emergency and skeletal services.
The doctors are reportedly
engaged on temporary or casual basis, often described as locum in medical
parlance, a development the NARD President, Dr. Chiedozie Achonwa said was
against the labour laws of the country.
At the General Hospital,
Mushin, none of the new doctors was seen on duty. Patients were loitering
around the hospital with no one to attend to them. A few patients were,
however, being attended to by nurses.
Some patients with serious
cases were advised by the nurses to visit the nearest private hospitals.
A few of the new doctors were
seen attending to patients, though only few patients turned up at the hospital.
But the Lagos State
Commissioner of Health, Dr. Jide Idris, is confident that normalcy would soon
return to the health sector as the newly-recruited doctors settle down.
He told National Mirror that
the doctors being recruited were not green horns.
“The people that are coming,
some of them have been practising for seven to nine years. We still have the
consultants in the same hospitals. They are not on strike but they are
undermining the system because by virtue of the civil service regulation, you
can’t go on strike if you are on level 14.
“It will be stupid to employ
all green people. That’s not the true picture. The people who are coming are of
different grades and they are going to work under the consultants. More people
are applying,” he said.
At a press briefing in Abuja,
the NARD President, Achonwa, described the mass sack of the doctors as
“unwarranted, unexpected of a democratic administration, a smack of executive
recklessness and extreme high-handedness of tyrannical proportion.
“What else can explain the mass
sack of highly skilled professionals in one fell swoop?”
He added that the sacked
doctors resolved to go on strike when previous agreements signed by the state
government and the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in the state were
reneged upon.
“The doldrums,” he said,
“necessitated the declaration of the warning strike of April 11 to 13, 2012 to
reawaken the government to its obligation.
“Rather than heed the warning
and speedily reinitiate processes towards resolution of the matter, the
government of Lagos State embarked on campaign of calumny and intimidation by
issuing queries, use of thugs to harass doctors, publication of doctors
salaries in newspapers, thereby endangering their lives and that of their
families, setting up of disciplinary panels and eventual mass sack of a record
788 doctors in its employment, including forceful eviction of same from their
residential quarters with only two days eviction notice, in clear violation of
Lagos State Tenancy Laws.”
The NARD president condemned
the publication of the doctors’ salaries, saying it could lead to the abduction
of doctors across the country.
He, however, expressed the hope
that the intervention of Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, in the matter would
allow the state government to “rethink and rescind its antilabour decisions and
commence full implementation of the CONMESS.”
Achonwa said that while NARD
was waiting for the outcome of the NMA intervention, the position of the
government remained unacceptable to the group.
“For the avoidance of doubt,
NARD shall not hesitate to employ all machinery at its disposal to protect the
interest of its members in Lagos State, if the government remains insensitive.”
He also called on the National
Assembly and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail upon the state government
to intervene towards resolving the impasse.