Patients at the Federal hospitals in Kaduna say they are yet to start feeling the impact of the strike by members of National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) as a result of services being rendered by Consultants .A check by the News Agency of Nigeria at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital and the National Ear Care Center showed patients being attended to fully,particularly at the emergency units.Some of the patients who spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said they had been receiving treatment since the beginning of the strike.Mr pius Obadiah, a patients with Ear Care Center, said the Consultants attended to them on regular basis.”
Even though it is painful to see our doctors embarking on strike during this hard times, we are grateful to the Consultants for attending to us.” I have been on admission for the past one week and was thinking I will not be attended to again, or will be discharged immediately.“However,since the doctors commenced strike, the Consultants had been doing a great job that is making us not to feel the impact of the strike yet,” he said.Another patient at the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, Musa Adamu, said they had been receiving treatment since the strike started.He said most of the patients, both out-patients and those on admission, were being attended to fully.”
We are yet to feel the impact of the strike as services here are fully rendered.” The Consultants here are doing a great job and we pray they do not get tired easily due to fatigue,” he said.Also speaking, the Public Relations Officer of the Neuropsychiatric hospital, Usman Haruna , said the hospital had been operating fully, knowing that mental health issues were not something that should be toyed with.” Here in our hospital, we are doing everything possible to attend to our patients because we know what it means to have mental challenge.”
No patient was discharged because if we do so, it is at our own risk.” Patients with mental illness do not go home by themselves; it has to be their parents that will come and take them home,” he said.NAN however reports that the patients patients are not comfortable as the Consultants might be overwhelmed by patients.They appealed to Federal Government to resolve the crisis so as to help less-privileged persons who could not afford private hospitals.
On his part, Secretary of the Kaduna State Residents Doctors Association, Dr Abass Ajayi , said there was total compliance to the strike action.
“We are hoping to bring the strike to an end as soon as possible, if our demands are made,” he said. (NAN)
