Doctors allege assault by health unionists

                          Doctors in Abuja have accused striking Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) members of assaulting and harassing personnel on duty and vandalising hospital property. Staff at Gwarinmpa General Hospital, National Hospital and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital—were assaulted within three days, the Nigerian […]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doctors in Abuja have accused striking Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) members of assaulting and harassing personnel on duty and vandalising hospital property.

Staff at Gwarinmpa General Hospital, National Hospital and University of Abuja Teaching Hospital—were assaulted within three days, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) said on Thursday.

NMA chairman in the FCT, Dr Fatima Mairami said attackers believed to be members of JOHESU “broke down the entrance to the main block and that of the laboratory and shot canisters of tear gas within [Gwarinmpa Hospital] causing severe respiratory distress to members of staff and defenceless patients, including premature babies.”

A senior official, Dr Eucharia Anunobi, an asthmatic, told a media briefing she fainted in the incident.

JOHESU, a coalition of health workers excluding doctors, has been on strike since last November, leaving hospitals to doctors.

 

NMA said management of the hospitals involved in the incidents have lodged reports with the police and for better security in hospitals.

The accusation is the first formal admission that striking workers attempted to disrupt skeletal services at hospitals after resident doctors at National Hospital made similar allegations to Daily Trust on December 31.

NMA has also accused JOHESU members of deliberately locking up hospital equipment, consumables, reagents, theatres and labour wards and then disappear with the keys, calling it unethical.

Dr Mairami called it a “clear breach of public service rules which require investigation, restoration and appropriate sanctions by the authorities of the affected health facilities.”

NMA said it was concerned about safeguarding the lives of “health workers who have continued to render essential health services and saving lives in the midst of the needless strike.”

JOHESU has denied the allegations, insisting its members could have no reason to disrupt hospital services.

An official told Daily Trust by phone that the accusations were concocted to rubbish the image of the union.