LUTH resident doctors’ strike will end soon – CMD

Prof. Akin Osibogun, the Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, on Wednesday said the resident doctors in the hospital would soon end their strike.

Osibogun told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the management had been working with the Federal Government towards ensuring payment of their vexed outstanding salary arrears.

NAN reports that the doctors, under the aegis of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), had on Sept. 6 begun the industrial action over non-payment of their three months’ salary arrears.

Others on strike at the facility are house officers and medical officers below the rank of principal medical officers, who are members of the ARD.

Dr Emeka Ugwu, the ARD president, said that some members had not been paid their salaries since June when the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) commenced in LUTH.

Ugwu said that ARD had written the management and expressed its grievances over the non-payment of their salary arrears since June.

“You know there have been demonstrations by doctors who have not been paid several months of salaries.

“And it’s largely because of the IPPIS, the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, that they introduced in June and doctors need their utmost concentration at work because it is a matter of life and death.

“So, you cannot force a patient into the hand of a doctor who has not been paid, who is not well motivated and who is hungry.’’

NAN reports that activities were still partially paralysed at the hospital as the doctors remained resolute in their demands.

NAN correspondents, who visited the hospital, report that other health workers and consultants were, however, attending to patients at the Emergency and Accident unit and Out-Patients Department (OPD). (NAN)