As doctors allege victimisation and threaten another strike
Doctors in the employ of the Lagos State Government will, on Tuesday, appear before a disciplinary committee because of the three-day strike they recently went on.
Addressing journalists on Monday, the Chairman of the Medical Guild, the doctors’ umbrella body, Olumuyiwa Odusote, said the doctors had started receiving queries from April 16, 2012, some days after they suspended a three-day warning strike.
Odusote, who accused the state government of victimisation, said that “doctors might not be found at their duty posts and this might be for as long as the government deems it fit.”
Only doctors in the Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, and the General Hospitals at Gbagada and Ajeromi have so far been issued queries.
It was however, gathered that the queries have been coming in batches, and all 1,100 doctors in state hospitals expect to get one eventually.
“We have resolved that all doctors will meet to answer the query to whatever questions,” said Odusote.
“If you (government) want to sack doctors, sack all the over 1,100 doctors in Lagos who participated in this strike.”
The Chairman, Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria, LASUTH branch, Adebowale Adekoya, expressed shock at the development, saying it could provoke the doctors to go on another strike.
Adekoya blamed the government for the ongoing crisis in the state’s health sector, saying it had not been committed to resolving the dispute between the two parties.
“This government is trying to provoke us to go on another strike; no single invitation has been sent out (by the government) to have a meeting,” he said.
Adekoya, however, appealed for the intervention of residents in the dispute.
“Lagos doctors are not lovers of trouble; we are not interested in strike action. We have sworn to save lives, and we are begging government not to push us to strike,” he said.
It will be recalled that the doctors were on strike to press for the payment of teaching allowance to junior, medical and house officers, amongst other issues.
