Doctors at Yaba Psychiatry Hospital begin strike over insecurity, poor working conditions

 Doctors at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatry Hospital, Yaba have been on a five week strike following their anger over insecurity at the outpatient clinic of the hospital. Investigation by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) revealed that only skeletal services were being offered by consultants available to see the few patients who visited the hospital since the start of the strike. The emergency unit which is usually filled with patients was empty as there were no health personnel to attend to the patients The President, Association of Resident Doctors of the hospital, Dr Oyetayo Jeje said that lack of security at the outpatient clinic was a major challenge.


“There are no escape routes for health workers in case of an emergency, that is, if an aggressive patient would break out to harm doctors, patients and patient relatives. “Also, there are no alarm systems to alert for help in case of an emergency and even the consultants have refused to run clinics due to the security challenges. “The Federal Ministry of Health needs to step in to avoid loss of lives and bodily harm to health workers as well as patients and their relatives,” she said.She said that other grievances of the doctors include the unconducive working conditions as seen in the dilapidated state of the consulting rooms, including broken chairs. Jeje said that salaries of the doctors had not been fully paid by the management even though complete salary had been released from the ministry. In an interview with NAN, the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Rahman Lawal, said that the hospital was running skeletal services in spite of the on-going strike. Lawal said that various heads of units of the hospital were on ground to attend to the few patients available. He said that the hospital had security personnel on ground and that the management had recruited more security personnel to be stationed at the outpatient clinic. “We have security personnel in the hospital that patrol everywhere and we have also put in place measures to ensure that the hospital is safe,” he said.