Hope deemed for patients abandoned at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH, Enugu, on Sunday, as the striking Resident Doctors have resolved not to call off their strike.
Although the strike has lasted for two months, the doctors have received their salaries for the same period.
They have, however, insisted that unless the skipping allowances and other demands made by the medical workers union were resolved, they would not return to work.
The Chief Medical Director of UNTH, Dr. Christopher Amah and other management staff had held talks with the aggrieved medical workers comprising Resident Doctors, Medical Officers and House Officers between July 5 when the strike commenced and last Friday, September 11, pleading with them to call off the strike in the interest of the suffering patients.
The CMD had explained to them that there was no circular from the Federal Ministry of Health authorizing implementation of the skipping allowance, assuring that once the fund was appropriated in the next budget, the management would not hesitate to pay the allowances.
It was gathered that while some leaders of the medical workers union had agreed to suspend the strike, having investigated and realized that there was no fund actually released to the hospital for the payment, some officials of the union, led by the Chairman, Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Aloy Ugwoke, vowed to continue with the strike.
The Ugwoke-led group, which met last Friday, according to one of the union leaders, took a decision not to resume work, demanding that the management should release funds from the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, to pay the skipping allowances.
The management was said to have explained to the aggrieved medical workers that the IGR was not meant for the settlement of workers’ entitlements, adding that with the recent directive on the operation of single treasury account by the Federal Government, such expenditure could not be authorized by the hospital but this fell on deaf ears, as the doctors were bent on arm-twisting the CMD to settle the arrears.
“It is becoming very clear to us that some of our colleagues in the medical sector have other motives beyond the implementation of the skipping allowances, which was our main reason for embarking on the strike since July.
“They want to play politics with the strike which many of us have said it is no longer necessary because our colleagues in other teaching hospitals have already called off the strike having realized from investigations that no fund has been released for payment of what we are demanding,” an official of the union said on Sunday.
He disclosed that many of the striking doctors who are sympathetic to the plights of the patients, had during the union’s meeting last Friday, expressed their desire to return to work more so when they had been paid for the period they did not work, but this was turned down by some union leaders “who are bent on causing unnecessary trouble in the hospital.”
Investigations revealed that many of the striking Resident Doctors who own private clinics had been diverting patients to their clinics since the strike began while those patients, who could not afford to pay the high bills charged by such clinics, have continued to besiege the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Parklane, Enugu, which had been under intense pressure on account of the increasing number of patients flooding the hospital daily.
Following the directive by the Federal Ministry of Health to the Teaching Hospitals nationwide that implementation of skipping be suspended since there was no fund appropriated for it in this year’s budget, medial workers at other Federal Teaching Hospitals in Calabar, Ibadan, Lagos, Nnewi and the National Orthopeadic Hospital, Enugu have since called of their strike.
However, they were said to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with their management, agreeing to implement the skipping allowances as soon as funds were available for it.
Other workers of UNTH, who spoke on the development at the weekend, said that the insistence of the UNTH doctors to continue with the strike might have been influenced by a Consultant who had been seeking ways of causing trouble in order to sabotage the activities of the hospital, especially the Open Heart Surgery programme of the hospital.
The Consultant was said to be eyeing the position of the CMD but failed to achieve his ambition following the endorsement of Dr. Amah’s second term.
At present, the hospital is unable to admit new patients into the wards, while doctors are not available at the General Out-Patients Department, GOPD, leaving only the Emergency, Cardiothoracic, Intensive Care, Renal Units, Ante-natal clinic and the Eye Theatre as the few departments still rendering services.
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