OOUTH: Resident doctors embark on indefinite strike

Resident doctors at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, have embarked on total strike over “enormous persistent decline in the workforce.”

This development is coming on the heels of the pronouncement of the State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, who had approved the immediate recruitment of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers, for the hospital.

The doctors, under the umbrella of Association of Resident Doctors, made their decision known in a statement signed by its chairman, Osikoya Oludotun and Secretary, Ajose Oluwafemi respectively.

The doctors said the hospital over the years, had witnessed serious reduction in the workforce which had made it lose accreditation for full training of resident doctors.

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The doctors said they resorted to indefinite strike because several meeting with the immediate and present administration governments, had not yielded any positive results.

“The decline has many implications which include: loss of accreditation for full training of resident doctors. This is already happening. For example, a department has partial accreditation previously, when the accreditation team came again for reaccreditation, they met much fewer residents than the last time they came. There would be no way to give full accreditation in that case.

“We have engaged the hospital management on many occasions without clear reprieve since it appears to be beyond their reach. We have also met on several occasions with the representatives of the state government both in the previous and current administrations. The inertia is really disturbing.

” We sincerely want to take care of our patients; we don’t want poor outcomes. But this is already happening when the doctors are working under hectic conditions and the health of the caregivers is also seriously endangered.

“We have been forced to resort to this measure, after many notices and warnings that we cannot go on like this, in the hope that the government will wake up to the real issues.

” We are aware that the governor of the state, Dapo Abiodun, set up an administrative panel to look into the matters of the Teaching Hospital, which we hope they are working on as expected, but it appears their focus is on long term infrastructure, with no clear regard for the presentation discharge of health care to the citizens of Ogun State, OOUTH being the only state-owned tertiary health institution in the state,” the statement reads.

Meanwhile, Governor Abiodun had ordered that advertisement should also be rolled out in all departments with a shortage of manpower.

Abiodun in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Kunle Somorin, said the recruitment exercise became necessary based on the recommendations submitted by a nine-man administrative panel chaired by Dr Yemi Onabowale.

The governor had expressed displeasure over the state of a tertiary hospital, when he visited it, last June, with a promise to return its past glory.

Abiodun had during the inauguration of the panel charged them to assess the operational modalities of the hospital, and to suggest how to improve the standard in tandem with an acceptable universal standard for medical training, research and tertiary health care services.