Medical activities were on Saturday paralyzed in Lagos State hospitals as doctors under the aegis of Medical Guild on Saturday resumed their strike.
At the Isolo General Hospital, Isolo, for instance, there were no doctors to attend to patients while pregnant women were delivered under the supervision of only nurses.
Many other patients who visited the hospital were not attended to as they were seen loitering in the premises looking forlorn. The same was the case at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, and the General Hospital, Igando, Alimosho Local Government Area.
The strike is coming three days after Governor Babatunde Fashola signed the 2011 budget of N450bn into law.
Fashola had in the budget approved a new salary scale for all public workers in the state. But the medical practitioners, who convened at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital last Friday ordered doctors in public hospitals to embark on strike following failure of Lagos state government to implement the earlier agreement reached with the doctors on various demands.
Chairman of the state guild, Dr. Bode Williams, who spoke on the development, said members had decided not to return to work until all their demands were met. According to him, all the promises made by the state government are yet to be redeemed.
Members of the guild had earlier in November suspended a 14-week old strike to give way for government to show sincerity. But there was a clause in the agreement as the guild said it would reconvene in February, 2011 to review all the agreements reached with government.
The demands by the doctors include: ‘with effect from January 2011, government would implement the mutually agreeable wage review which would not put doctors in Lagos state hospitals at a comparison disadvantage to other health institutions.
“That the Medical Guild’s request for the payment of arrears would be considered with the same spirit as the implementation of the salary review.”
However, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, in his statement shortly after the suspension of the last strike, reiterated government’s commitment to the improvement of health care services in the state through the development of infrastructure as well as improved condition of service for the manpower.
Source: The Punch
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