Doctors strike: Patients urge FG to resolve issues with striking doctors

Patients at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, have appealed to the Federal Government and the striking doctors to employ dialogue as a strategy to the resolves issues to end the strike.

Our correspondent reports that the National Association of Resident Doctors, (NARD) had on Sept. 4 directed its members nationwide to embark on an indefinite strike to pressurise government to meet its demands.

The strike notice was signed by Dr John Onyebueze and Dr Aneke Emmanuel, the National President and Secretary of (NARD).

One of the patients at the hospital, Mr Famous Abba, who came for routine check up, said that government should look into the demands of the resident doctors in the interest of the poor patients.

“By now, the nation should have gone over the issue of strikes in our health institutions, and other crucial sectors.

“Government should make the doctors’ welfare a priority to avoid frequent strikes; we all know their importance to the people and the larger society.

“The clinic routine is not on today because some of the doctors are on strike and this makes the process to be slow causing unnecessary delay for patients,” he said.

Another patient, Mrs Grace Hector, commended the hospital management and other doctors on ground for managing the patients in spite of the ongoing doctors’ strike.

“We never believe that this matter can get to this stage though, it is a bit slow as you can see we are still being attended to accordingly.

“We still want the government to please resolve the issues with the striking doctors so that the services can improve,” she said.