Resident Doctors Pull Out of ESUTH Strike, Criticise ARD Leadership

Resident Doctors Pull Out of ESUTH Strike, Lampoon ARD Leadership

Some resident Doctors have pulled out of the Strike action embarked upon by Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) in Enugu State University Teaching Hospital (ESUTH) last week.

In a communique made available to Igbere TV on Tuesday, the doctors said they believe that the timing of the strike action is ill-advised considering the situation of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the World.

The doctors noted that the need to return to work is to appreciate the efforts of the state Government, under the leadership of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi that just paid 25% of the COVID-19 allowance not excluding the life assurance scheme for health workers in the state.

Igbere TV recalls that as part of efforts aimed at containing the spread of the pandemic in Enugu, Gov. Ugwuanyi also launched the engagement of 124 health specialists to man the isolation centres in the state.

The communique reads in full;

1. The quest for the improvement of the welfare package of Resident Doctors in Parklane, as well as the improvement of welfare packages of other medical doctors and frontline health professionals in ESUT Parklane, particularly in this era of COVID 19, has been a work in progress.

2. In 2014, an elaborate negotiation between the then Enugu State NMA Chairman led by Dr Onodugo, and the then government of Enugu State, resulted in the improvement of welfare package of all the doctors in Enugu state, from CONTISS to some percentage of CONMESS.

3. It must be recalled that the poor handling of the side of ESUT Parklane residents by their then ARD leadership led to a disparity between the salaries of Parklane doctors and that of the doctors in Enugu Ministry of Health. This disparity in salaries generated a lot of tensions amongst Parklane doctors resulting in industrial actions undertaken by the Parklane residents in 2018. This was as a result of Health Professioners clinical allowance(HPCA) of which it was discovered that we were not entitled to it. The first strike notice was on this basis.

4. The strike was eventually called off without the realization of the bridging of this gap. This was the state of affairs before a group of doctors in Parklane stated that they were going on strike on 24th April 2020, this time on a different demand for FULL CORRECTED CONMESS. This group of doctors allegedly obtained an approval from the Enugu State government for the payment of corrected CONMESS for Parklane resident doctors in exclusion of any other doctors in Parklane Hospital or elsewhere in Enugu state. Corrected CONMESS, as we all know, is the salary scale of doctors in federal hospitals, and is in reality about twice the current salaries of doctors in Parklane.

5. This money, if paid to resident doctors alone is a lot higher than what a Professor and consultants in the same institution would get. This led to other health workers in parklane including the Pharmacists, Nurses, Medical laboratory scientists and other allied workers approaching the government for a review and subsequent upgrade of their own salaries. Following this development, the state government requested for an all inclusive review of affordable salaries across board. The Leadership of ARD turned their back on the request and resumed strike .

6. It is important to note that the first strike notice was not even on full conmess but on HPCA. Now the National Industrial Court, gave an interim Injunction restraining from going on strike which they flouted and went on strike despite appeals by medical elders and well meaning Enugu state indigenes.

7. Now the questions are:

a. Why the clamor for strike in the midst of this pandemic? Are the Doctors working for passion or money

b. Is it possible that the residents should receive almost twice the salary of their Consultants? Did they speak foŕ all or for themselves alone?

c. Why is it impossible for these Doctors to have agreed to have a lasting solution to the problem of salary of workers in the health system taking everybody along.

d. One wonders why these demands are being made at a time there’s global economic recession following this pandemic. Where will the state government that pays the salary of its workers get the money to pay this money.

8. In view of the above, some of us who feel that in as much as we need good ruminerations, we believe that the timing of this strike action is ill-advised considering the situation at hand. We don’t want to believe that behind the screen, what sterns this demand are multi-factorial. Nobody wants to die, but the fear of covid19 is a key factor in this DELUSIONAL demand. Secondly, money is pivotal but this utterly negates the HIPPOCRITIC OATH of medical practice. We therefore disassociate ourselves from the ongoing strike and appeal to our colleagues to return to work as this strike portrays us as those without consciences in the face of the global pandemic. The need to return to work is to appreciate the efforts of the state Government that just paid 25% of the covid19 allowance not excluding the life assurance scheme for health workers in the state.

"UNTH Enugu Doctors Watch My Wife Die For Fear of Covid-19"- Man Cries Out

40-year-old man, Mr Nwachukwu Alagbu, has accused medical doctors at University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital UNTH, Ituku Ozalla, Enugu state, of killing his wife for the fear of been contracting the dreaded Coronavirus.

The man who cried profusely over the death of his wife with four children behind, explain to our Correspondent that; “my wife, late Mrs Nkiru Alagbu, was a 35-year-old woman who developed cardiovascular disorder shortly after her last child more than a year ago".

“Her medical condition had been waxing and waning, especially after every treatment".

“In January 2020, my wife developed the following symptoms: fever, breathlessness, chest pain, morbid weakness, and excessive sweating and loss of appetite. Her illness made my lovely wife visit so many hospitals until Tuesday (14th April 2020) when she had to be referred to a diagnostic Clinic in Enugu for some investigations.

Right there, the good-spirited Consultant in that Clinic promptly referred her to a cardiologist for immediate attention when he noticed her major health challenge was cardiovascular disease”.

Continuing, Alagbu said “this action heralded our travails. For the avoidance of doubt, my wife and I had not traveled outside Enugu and Anambra States in the last five years. We had never come in contact with anyone diagnosed or suspected of having COVID-19.

“Unfortunately, by the period we got to the private hospital in Enugu in the morning on 15-04-2020, we were directed to Enugu State University Teaching Hospital Parklane GRA, Enugu. At ESUTH Parklane, they informed us their hospital did not have a functional Trolley or wheelchair to wheel my wife to the ward and that the hospital wards were full without empty beds.

“In frustration, I immediately took her to UNTH, Ituku/Ozalla. That was where the worst happened. A doctor came and from a prescribe social distance asked some few questions. Quickly, he concluded that, it was a case of COVID-19. 

Immediately myself, my brother’s wife and a family friend who offered to accompany us to the hospital started crying because none of the medical personnel on duty in the hospital Emergency cared to assist after my late wife was tagged a COVID-19 case. 

At this time my wife whispered to my ear, that I should not allow her die. I saw my wife in pain and she keep telling me that she would not die. I cried my eyes out when I learnt that the consultant cardiologist called UNTH, informing them to admit my wife for him. That he was coming to take over her treatment, but they ignored him, saying my wife was a Coronavirus patient.

“Within a short while, after the doctor made that COVID-19 proclamation, all the medical personnel disappeared. No one bothered to come close to her while she was lying in the car helpless. And after waiting for more than 30 minutes, I saw my brother’s wife ( A Consultant’ wife) crying uncontrollably, and handing her phone to a doctor so that the husband could explain the health situation of my wife to him.

“My brother later informed me what the doctor said. He said that they had started making efforts to contact the COVID-19 medical team that would handle the case of my wife.

“He told me that the doctor he spoke with on the phone was so rude and that that UNTH doctor started accusing him of threatening him after informing him that he had to make efforts to sustain the sick alive while they make their efforts at confirming or ruling out the COVID-19.

“All attempts made by my brother to convince them that my wife was not a COVID-19 case proved abortive”, Alagbu added.

He continued: “I have never felt so incapacitated like this since I was born some 40 years ago. I saw my wife die like a foul in a hospital, and the doctors turned their backs at her and worked away without pity or compassion, he wept.

“They allowed my wife to die unattended to, all in the name of fear of COVID-19. Medical doctors watched my wife die like a soulless being. I thought it was a local movie playing when I could not get help from the Government Hospital, simply because the doctors felt my wife had COVID-19 symptom.

“I knew the worst could have happened. But, I kept calm. To my most considerable chagrin, it took the person of the Chief Medical Director of the hospital to attend to her personally and certify her dead after the sick had been in the hospital for hours without the desired attention.

“It is a sad history in my whole life watching the mother of my children died like a foul. The hospital could not open a folder or card. She came to the hospital, died after about three hours while in a car”.

At that point, Nkiru’s body was taken away from UNTH Enugu to a private mortuary.

While calling on Enugu state Governor, Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), to urgently intervened on the matter, Mr. Alagbu, asked If indeed the case was a COVID-19 case, “how come there were no efforts put in place for sample collection even after death, what measures did the hospital put in place to safeguard the mortuary staff?, Why did it take the hospital hours to wear their PPE and attend to the patient? What is the hope of ordinary men in our Nigeria hospital today? How come the whole fear of COVID-19 disappeared as soon as the patient died? I am heart-wrecked because my wife died leaving behind four children, the eldest is 11 year old.

“This wicked doctors watched my wife die like a foul for a purported fear of COVID-19”, he cried via telephone.

When contacted on the allegation the chairman UNTH, Medical Advisory Committee, Dr. Valentine Ogwu, he said he was in a meeting and promised to called back which he never did after several calls and text messages.


Photo Credit: Facebook

Verify My Cure For COVID-19 - Nigerian Expert writes FG

A renowned expert in alternative medicine and energy health, Prof. Joseph Akpa, has made-known to the Minister of Health, Prof. Osagie Ehanire, of his claim to have a cure for Coronavirus through energy health curative means.

Akpa, who is the Provost of Foundation for Energy Health College of Science and Technology, Mgbowo, Enugu, intimated the minister in a letter sent to him and made available to newsmen in Enugu on Sunday.

He said that he had asked the minister and his crack team to visit the institute to verify his claims of finding solution to the virus tormenting the world.

Akpa, who is also Provost of Luminar International College of Alternative Medicine, said that he had sent an invitation to Enugu State Government to visit and see how he developed the method of treatment of the dreaded disease and various health problems

I will challenge any health institute or agency to bring any known case of Coronavirus to me and see how it will disappear within few days.

“If the government approaches me to cure any known case, I will voluntarily do so without any condition attached to it,’’ he assured.

The expert said that he had already made energy health medicine specifically to boost human immune system and others meant to directly attack the virus to ensure a 100 per cent successful cure.

He explained that Coronavirus known as “coronaviridae’’ was among thousands of viruses known to man which before now was not as popular as others. (NAN)