By Joy Odigie
The University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) on Wednesday reduced the number of patients it attended to on daily basis due to the ongoing nationwide strike embarked upon by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).
Dr Eustace Oseghale, the Chairman of NARD, UBTH Chapter, said the doctors were complying fully with the association’s directives on the nationwide strike.
Oseghale said their compliance to the strike was 100 per cent, adding that the association wanted medical services to be improved in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the General Practice Clinic (GPC) is the first point of call for patients intending to receive medical services or already receiving such services at the UBTH.
Patients at the clinic who spoke to NAN in Benin on Wednesday said some of them were asked to go home and come back the following day before 7:00 a.m, as the numbers of patients to be attended to for the day had already been selected.
Mr Evidence Oshodi, one of the patients, told NAN that he was at the hospital at about 10: 00 a.m., but was told to go home and come back very early on Thursday.
“After spending time and transport money to come here, you are then told to go home and come back the next day before you can access medical services. It is frustrating,’’ he said.
A lady at the Information Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said not all patients were being attended to since the commencement of the strike.
“For today, the first 60 patients that came to the hospital would be attended to.
“This is even because the doctors who usually attended to the patients are on strike, but we have some consultants who have come here to render skeletal services to patients,’’ she said.
NAN observed that the Accident and Emergency Ward was empty, while some patients were being attended to by nurses in some of the other wards visited.
NAN reports that patients are also seen waiting to be attended to by consultants at the Consultants Out-Patient Department of the hospital, while a few pregnant women were at the Ante-natal department.
However, normal services were being rendered at the Central Hospital in Benin, as patients and doctors said the resident doctors at the hospital were not on strike. (NAN)
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