by Monday Ebalu, Benin cityAs the striking members of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), UBTH branch stick to their two months old strike, the Chief Medical Director of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Prof. Michael Ibadin had appealled to them to consider the lives of patients and return to work.
Prof Ibadin who emphasised that life is sancrosanct further urged them to uphold the sanctity of their oath as medical professionals to give medical attention to all at all times.
Following the two months old strike action embarked by the resident Doctors at the UBTH, Prof. Ibadin on Tuesday described the strike action as ominous sign that some desperate resident doctors at the hospital is working helplessly to thwart and undermine the efforts of management in providing quality and sustainable healthcare service delivery for patients.
He frowned at the passion by resident doctors who take pleasure on embarking on incessant strikes even when management was working round the clock to ensure their requirements are met.
Ibadin, who was reacting to the wrong and deceive reports from some people said, UBTH has become a model for tertiary hospitals in the country adding that the actions of the resident doctors, their sponsors and cohort of the said reports in some national dailies was a calculated attempt to malign and discredit him.
He noted that the resident doctors at UBTH where not pathetic to the plights of patients and would rather abandon their duties than to come to the negotiating table with management even as patients suffered or died while the strike lasted.
Theledgerng.com gathered that the Resident doctors who have gone on newspapers blackmail of the Prof. Ibadin led administration for selfish reasons with a view to causing more tension and prolonging the strike action, which is now having a toll on patients from Edo, Delta and Ondo states in accessing the health facility have resorted to going personal rather than consulting on the way forward with management to ending the lingering strike action .
The residents doctors who are notoriously known to embrace strike actions without recourse to other forms of dispute resolution, have in recent times constantly taken the laws into their hands by embarking on unwarranted and unjustifiable industrial action, which according to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) Public relations Officer (PRO), Mrs. Ibitoye Kehinde is to give a dog a bad name and hang it.
Theedgerng.com gathered that the resident doctors are allegedly making unrealistic demand from management on a number of issues which are beyond the purview of management.
According to the resident doctors, they want improvement in the areas of proper equipping of the hospital, reduction in the charges paid by patients among others, which the hospital management had already addressed ahead of the present ARD strike, further giving their lamentation and present strike action a political coloration and undertone that is capable of causing disaffection between management and the resident doctors.
The resident doctors flimsy and rather spurious allegations are that the hospital management insisted that they have done all that was required of them and see no reason the resident doctors should still be on strike as their going on indefinite strike after a breakdown of negotiations with the hospital management over issues of allowances and the management of the hospital ended deadlocked.
The petty allegations pelted by the doctors that the present hospital management recorded the highest number of strike and is both 'insincere and incompetence' amounts to the desperation of the resident doctors and their cohorts to destabilize the hospital with a view to frustrating management who have apparently proven to be committed and determined promote standard practice for all and sundry seeking for medical care in the south-south region.
The management who have beaten the residents doctors to their game have insisted that no work, no pay, but urged the doctors to avail themselves for negotiation.
It was reliable gathered that management have been reaching out to the doctors but to no avail as the striking doctors have taken the face-off as personal and want the head of the Chief Medical Director, a situation that has further compounded the situation of both management and the resident doctors to halt the strike.
The resident doctors who did not spare the Federal Ministry of Health and the Chief Medical Director of wrongdoing bemoaned what they described as deliberate attempt and failure on the part of the federal government team led by the Head, Department of Hospital Services(DHS) Dr. Wapada Balami, whom they accused of visiting the hospital and not being able to live up to expectation during its visit to federal government health institutions across the country to verify the ability of the institutions to finance personnel emoluments accused the Head, Department of Hospital Services(DHS) Dr. Wapada Balami of incompetence.
The doctors averred that the coming to UBTH by the federal government team with a promise to have an audience with both management and the residents doctors was not achieved as the FG team ended up leaving the hospital without meeting with their doctors to hear their series of perceived personal grouse and allegations against the management which they noted has compounded the strike.
" We are disappointed with the federal government team and they are not helping the situation when they are one-sided and biased. The indications we are getting from the UBTH CMD. is that he is untouchable" as claimed by some resident doctors who have insisted and have vowed to work against the hospital management following their loyalty to the leadership of the UBTH resident doctor.
The leadership of the resident doctors who are in the habit of carrying newspaper campaign of calumny against the management of UBTH, vowed to leave no stone unturned until the strike escalate into a major crisis at the University teaching hospital under the leadership of Prof. Ibadin.
Prof. Ibadin who has tirelessly improved the state of the hospital since his inception as chief medical director of the tertiary hospital has turn around the tides in UBTH from the obsolete health facility it was to a modern and state of the art health care facility with latest infrastructure development to boost health care and human capacity development for patients and doctors using the facility.
Verifiable evidence by a first time visitor at the facility attest to the Chief Medical Director's achievement and feat in the medical professional since his inception.
The P.R.O of the hospital, Kehinde Ibitoye who absolved the management of all allegations said in an interview that management had done it best to wade into the strike action by the resident doctors, but noted sadly that the doctors have vowed to continue with the strike, a situation that suggest they were acting their pay master script.
Ibitoye said, " the management has done it best to pacify the resident doctors to return to work but they have not been able to come to an agreement with the doctors. The doctors who are adamant claimed they are least paid interms of salary. Government has a scale to pay federal government health workers and that is what the hospital management is using to pay them.
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