Oluwafemi Rotifa, a young resident doctor at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), collapsed and died after “a 72-hour shift”.
Rotifa was said to have slumped on Monday after going to the
call room to rest. He later passed on despite efforts to resuscitate him in the
intensive care unit.
He was said to have been on continuous call duty for three
days.
Confirming the incident to TheCable, Tope Osundara,
president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), condemned the
workload of doctors in Nigerian hospitals.
“The burnout and workload among medical doctors is becoming
very worrisome,” he said.
“We have cried out and complained repeatedly.
“What happened is that the resident doctor was on call in
the emergency room. Unfortunately, the workload was strenuous, and they had to
regularly go over 24-hour shifts. He had reviewed a patient, and afterwards, he
went to the call room to rest.
“They came to call him, and it was there that they saw him
sprawled on the floor. He must have fallen from the bed.”
Osundara said some doctors spend a whole month on call.
“Ideally, no one should be on call for even 24 hours. We
later discovered he was treating malaria, but adults in Nigeria don’t die of
malaria. Malaria is endemic in Nigeria. He had malaria but still had to go and
treat a patient,” he said.
“The overuse of manpower strained his health and led to this
painful death. His death was due to overworking.”
He asked the government to address staff shortage, improve
welfare packages and enforce humane work schedules for doctors.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com