Ondo FMC Health Workers Go On Two-Weeks Strike

The members of the Ondo State Chapter of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) who work at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo, have embarked on a strike that will last for two weeks.

On Thursday, the doctors had shut down services after the association’s general meeting in Owo, with a communique to that effect.

The strike action had been declared on Thursday by Dr. Gideon Olaopa, the President of the Association after a general meeting that came with the communiqué announcing that the decision would take immediate effect.

Dr. Olaopa noted that the warning strike became the last resort after they had been operating relentlessly “under dire stressful conditions”, adding, that there were only 80 resident doctors and health officers available at the medical centre.

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According to Olaopa, the strike was what they can use to demand change because no recruitment had taken place in the hospital since 2018, whereas the hospital used to have about 300 doctors and house officers he claimed.

He lamented that these experts eventually gave up on the work.

The spokesperson for the Medical CentreOlufunsho Ijanusi, had confirmed the development to Ripples Nigeria, while assuring that the hospital’s management would take control of the situation because the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Liasu Adeagbo, had recently returned from Abuja where he had a meeting with the leadership of the ARD, appealing to them to exercise patience.

Furthermore, he added that there were bureaucratic loopholes that were preventing them from getting more staff to work with hospitals, but he hinted that the management would soon find a way out of the problems.

SOURCE: Ripples Nigeria