Barely 10 days after the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) called off their strike, National Hospital Abuja is facing a total grounding of health activities due to health workers strike.As a result of the strike, the National Hospital is now a shadow of its self as many sections of the facility remains closed.
The Labour Ward, General Out-patient Department (GOPD) among others was completely empty. LEADERSHIP learnt that pregnant women were not admitted because there are no Nurses or Midwives to keep checks on them.
A pregnant woman, Mrs Theresa Mameh, who was found waiting at an empty section of the hospital said she had not been checked since morning and that a Doctor had initially held her hand and prayed for her and the country.
“The Nurses seem in charge of virtually everything about us.
“We are pleading with government to heed and meet the demands of these people so that we can be attended to, we don’t have money to go somewhere else, or a private hospital, most of us who don’t have money did not prepare for this, am already thinking of what will happen to me.
“Lives are really going, I heard one of us gave birth at home today but that’s dangerous, what if something went wrong despite urging us to deliver at the hospital?”
One of the hospital workers, who pleaded anonymous, hinted LEADERSHIP about the death of a pregnant woman who was on admission at the emergency ward.
“The woman, she died on Sunday, I don’t know what caused the death but she died with the baby inside her,” she explained.
However, the spokesperson of the National Hospital, Dr Tayo Haastrup told our correspondent that he was not aware of the incidents.
The sad looking HOD Information Management appealed to the striking workers to consider the poor masses who will suffer most due to their absence.
“I am obviously not happy, federal government said it is still on the negotiation table with them, hope the issue is resolved soonest, this is not what I am happy commenting on,” he said.
Meanwhile, we also revealed that while health workers at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) had also joined in the strike, workers at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have capitalised on the happening and embarked on a strike urging the federal government to appoint a substantive Director General or risk continuous industrial action.
Source:Leadership
