Osun doctors protest half salaries, threaten strike

Doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association in Osun State on Thursday staged a public protest to press home their demand for stoppage of payment of half salaries to doctors by the state government.


Some of the protesting doctors, who were dressed in lab coats and branded shirts marched from the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Osogbo to Olaiya and some of the major streets in the state capital.

Singing anti-government songs as they marched through the streets, the doctors also said that there were no drugs nor equipment in state government owned hospitals despite the claims of the state that it had spent N10 billion to improve the sector.

The Chairman of the NMA in the state, Dr. Tokunbo Olajumoke, who addressed journalists during the protest blamed the lack of equipment and drugs for the death of former Governor Isiaka Adeleke on April 23.

Olajumoke said Adeleke was not taken to the government hospital very close to his residence because he knew the hospital lacked drugs and equipment to handle emergency cases.

He said the doctors might consider the option of a strike if the protest failed to achieve the desired result.

The NMA chairman said despite that the state government was paying doctors half salaries, the government was deducting full tax from their “amputated salaries.”