Patients on admission at the Abubakar Tafawa
University Teaching hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, are now at the receiving end as
resident doctors joined the nationwide strike by doctors.
When Yellowstone reporter went round the teaching hospital last Tuesday,
some patients and their relations were seen lamenting the development.
They cried out that they were suffering as a result of the
action by the resident doctors, and called on them to suspend the strike to
ameliorate their plight.
One of the patients, Lance corporal Yunusa Yusuf, an
injured soldier who was on a wheel chair, explained that he was there since
morning without being attended to.
Speaking outside the surgical ward of the teaching hospital,
Yusuf who was serving with the 313 Artillery Air Defence in Minna, sustained a
neck fracture during bush exercise along Jos road in Bauchi State.
He said he has been receiving treatment at ABTBUTH without
any problem until the strike.
Yusuf who was injured on October 26, 2015, lamented
that “I am here with my son and my younger brother since 7 a.m.
“I have spent N1, 500 buying one drug or the other,
and they are saying there’s no doctor around because of the strike. I am
suffering.
“I have not eaten since morning. God will judge
these doctors for subjecting us to this kind of suffering.
“As I am here, over 40 patients have come and gone
without being attended to. How can I go home like this? They want me to die”
Rukaiya Ibrahim, whose three years old son, Yakubu,
had pneumonia, was in a confused state as she spoke with our correspondent.
The worried mother said: “Please my son should not die. They
carried out a surgery on him two weeks ago and today he has been abandoned. He
has been crying since morning yet there is no doctor to attend to him.”
Rukaiya, whose son is admitted at the pediatric ward of the
teaching hospital, is sad that her son is helpless.
But some of the pediatric nurses told the reporter that
Rukaiya had nothing to worry about as nurse were attending to Yakubu and all
the children admitted in the ward, and that the boy would be fine.
At the delivery suit, the complaint was the same-no
doctors to attend to patients.
Also, Hajara Markus, whose younger sister, Martina
Timothy, was rushed to the hospital, said apart from midwives, there was no
doctor to attend to the Martina.
“We rushed her here this morning because her legs
were swollen, and she was having serious pains. Since morning, about 3 a.m., no
doctor has attended to her.
A check round the wards and other parts of the
hospital showed that activities were at its lowest.
There were few vehicular and human activities in the
hospital when our correspondent went round.
At the Trauma Centre, the usual traffic was non-existence as
the place was like a ghost town.
Two doctors-a male and female- in green attire and stethoscope,
were seen sitting on a table at the entrance of the emergency ward of the
teaching hospital.
It was gathered that emergency cases were not
attended to as most of the victims were either quickly treated or referred to
other places or turned down.
The Chief Medical Director of the teaching hospital, Dr. Mohammed
Alkali, told our correspondent in his office on Tuesday that the strike was
nationwide as a result of issues with the national bodies of the union.
Alkali said the hospital has clearly notified the regular
resident doctors and the locum doctors that by virtue of their appointments,
they are not supposed to be a part of the strike.
According to him, “I have received information that the locum
doctors have withdrawn from the strike. In the meantime, our consultants are
also on ground to assist in attending to patients and the locum doctors are
also around now to render services to patients,” he explained.
No comments:
Post a Comment