Resident Doctors Threaten Mass Resignation, Migration
From Omon-Julius Onabu in Benin-City
Resident Doctors in the employment of the Federal Government-owned University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), have said they were considering the option of resigning en masse, in the light of alleged insensitivity to their grievances and plight by the Federal Government.
The medical practitioners, under the aegis of Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (UBTH), also warned that they would go to other countries across the world where their serviccs would be better appreciated rather than work under slaving conditions.
In a statement, signed by the group's President, Dr Philip Ugbodaga, Secretary, Dr P.O.Okubor, and P.R.O., Dr A.Mene, and made available to THISDAY in Benin-City, the doctors said they could not place their finger on any offence they had committed except, perhaps, "to have stayed back in the country when their other colleagues left the shosres of this Nigeria for greener pastures."
The association expresses the feelings some of its members intimating the executive body of their intention to throw in the towel following "the failure of the Federal Government o address the issues that led to the Resident Doctors' strike in UBTH on 24th September, 2004.
To make good their threat, the doctors would "resign en masse from the Residency Training Programme in the UBTH to seek greener pastures abroad", the statement added, saying there was only tenuous hope of retracing their steps. It, however, noted that the executive body has been struggling to "dissuade some members from abandoning the health-ship in te hope that the government will quickly correct the shortfalls (in monthly salaries) since the beginning of the year when part payment of salaries became the norm in the helth sector."
The doctors, who had also accused the Government of discriminations against the UBTH generally, in terms of assigned staus and accompanying fallocation of running funds, stressed: "the doctors in UBTH are not asking for houses or cars from Government. They are not even demanding an increase in their salaries. All theyare simply asking for is payment for work done."
The UBTH has been closed and non-functional for three weeks due to the industrial action embarked upon by the UBTH chapter of the Association of Resident Doctors, a situation that bhas bee aggravated by the ongoing warning strikle against increased petroleum products prices in the country.Patients on admission had either been prematurely discharged or forced to seek alternative medical attention elsewhere.
The Nigerian health sector is beelieved to be still tottering from the effects of the exodus of medical and paramedical practitioners from the country in the 1980's, following the severe economic drepression and poor attitude of Government to health and, indeed, other vital sectors.
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