Patients Stranded As Abuja Resident Doctors Begin Indefinite Strike

Resident doctors nether the Federal Capital Territory Administration (ARD-FCTA) commenced an indefinite onslaught yesterday arsenic their seven-day informing onslaught ended.

The enactment has confused galore residents of the FCT, peculiarly patients who cannot spend the precocious outgo of attraction successful backstage hospitals.

At Nyanya General Hospital, a patient, who identified herself arsenic Agatha, narrated her ordeal. She said she had been asked to instrumentality this week aft the informing onslaught for further aesculapian attraction for a persistent cough and fever.

“I went to a pharmacy adjacent my location and bought malaria and cough medicine, but I americium inactive sick. When I returned to the infirmary today, I was told the doctors had started an indefinite strike. I don’t cognize what to do,” she lamented.

Another patient, Umar Aisha, said her lad had been unwell for respective days, but she waited until Monday to bring him to the infirmary aft the seven-day informing onslaught ended. Upon arrival, she was informed that the doctors had already commenced different strike.

LEADERSHIP reported that hospitals were turning distant caller patients past week and asking them to instrumentality aft the informing strike. At Nyanya General Hospital, the concern remained unchanged, with lone nurses disposable astir the premises and the wards, including the exigency unit, astir deserted.
In a communiqué issued aft an Emergency General Meeting connected Sunday, September 14, ARD-FCTA said the determination followed the government’s nonaccomplishment to code their long-standing demands contempt the expiration of the informing strike.

The doctors, who run successful the 14 District and General Hospitals crossed the FCT and the Department of Public Health, listed grievances including: Non-payment of wage arrears ranging from 1 to six months for members employed since 2023, nonaccomplishment to enlistee caller doctors contempt a terrible manpower shortage, and non-payment of the 2025 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF).

Others see non-payment of arrears from the 25/35 per cent CONMESS upward review, hazard allowance arrears, wage grant arrears, irregular wage payments, unexplained deductions, delayed promotions and stagnation of Fellows awaiting conversion to Consultant cadre, and the dilapidated authorities of FCTA hospitals, which they described arsenic “shadows of decay alternatively than centres of excellence.”

The doctors resolved that the onslaught would proceed indefinitely until the authorities demonstrated a “genuine committedness to making wellness successful the FCT a priority.”

The President of ARD-FCTA, Dr George Ebong, and General Secretary, Dr. Agbor Affiong, who signed the communiqué, appealed to the authorities to instrumentality urgent enactment “for the involvement of our patients and ourselves.”

Meanwhile, patients crossed the FCT proceed to carnivore the brunt of the strike, with galore near unattended arsenic authorities hospitals connection lone skeletal services.