Doctors in public hospitals in Lagos State on Tuesday began an indefinite strike after suspending a three day warning strike on April 13 over improved working conditions, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Announcing the resumption of the strike, the state Chairman of Medical Guild, Dr Olumuyiwa Odusote, said: ``we have decided to embark on this strike to stop all the illegalities in the system. We want to hold Lagos State Government responsible.
He said doctors refused to appear before the disciplinary panel set up by government because they considered it illegal.
``We are not the first union to embark on a strike and we would not be the last. We have never heard of a situation where a union will embark on strike and will be issued queries..
``For professionals to be ridiculed in a country where there is law and order is not acceptable, and that is why we are saying the Lagos State Government must allow order to prevail, peace to return and must not forget its sole responsibility to protect lives and property.
However, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, who described the panel as purely administrative, said government had not foreclosed the issue of dialogue.
He accused the doctors of threatening government with strikes, adding: ``we would negotiate with them (doctors) within the limits of the law," he said.
As at 11.00 am on Tuesday when a correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) visited some of the hospitals on the island, only nurses were attending to patients.
One of the expectant mothers at the Lagos Island Maternity, Mrs Chinenye Onuke, who was billed to undergo a Caesarian section was in tears as no doctor came to her aid.
``I have no money to go to a private hospital. I do not know what to do. I am pleading with the government to immediately enter into dialogue with the doctors as women are dying from pregnancy-related cases,'' she said. (NAN)
SOURCE: Leadership Newspaper, 24 April 2012. http://www.leadership.ng/nga/
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