Health
care services in Federal Medical Centre, FMC, and Imo Specialist Hospital,
Owerri, have been shut down following an indefinite strike by doctors in the
two hospitals.
The doctors are protesting what they termed
“indiscriminate sacking of our colleagues and other medical officers by the
managements” of the hospitals.
Announcing the indefinite industrial
action, the Chairman, Association of Resident Doctors, ARD, Dr. Chidi Obisi,
said it was their last resort.
“We have decided to embark on strike to
express our dissatisfaction over the sacking of 26 doctors by FMC management.
We will only resume when the affected doctors must have been recalled and the
sack letters given to them withdrawn”, Obisi said.
Efforts to speak with the Chief Medical
Director of FMC Dr. Angela Uwakwe, failed as her aides told Vanguard that
“she was outside the state on official assignment.”
The story was the same at Imo Specialist
Hospital, Owerri, when Vanguard visited, as services were grounded and
relations of patients were seen moving their loved ones away from the place