NARD Backs LAUTECH Doctors As Strike Warning Grows

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors has thrown its weight behind resident doctors at LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso, as their strike over welfare, staffing and unpaid entitlements raises the risk of a wider doctors’ shutdown.

The dispute is centred on resident doctors at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital in Oyo State. NARD said the local doctors had already entered the seventh day of industrial action by Friday, after earlier notices and a warning strike failed to resolve their complaints.

The doctors want the state to address minimum wage arrears, unpaid allowances, the Medical Residency Training Fund, passage of the Medical Residency Training Act in the state, recruitment of more doctors and rehabilitation of call rooms.

Premium Times reported that the LAUTECH doctors resolved at an emergency meeting on June 25 to continue a two-week warning strike and move to an indefinite strike if their demands were still not met. Punch reported that NARD warned the dispute could spread into regional and national action if the outstanding demands were ignored.

The Nation reported that NARD’s statement was signed by its president, Dr Mohammad Usman Suleiman, Secretary-General Dr Shuaibu Ibrahim, and Publicity and Social Secretary Dr Abdulmajid Yahya Ibrahim. The association said the hospital was short of doctors in departments including anaesthesia, community medicine, family medicine, surgery, radiology, orthopaedics and obstetrics and gynaecology.

NARD also linked the dispute to patient care, saying the doctors at LAUTECH had continued to provide specialist services to Ogbomoso, Oyo, Iseyin and nearby communities despite the pressure on staff. It urged the Oyo State Government to intervene before the dispute causes wider disruption in the hospital.

Sources: Punch, Premium Times, The Nation