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FROM PAUL ORUDE, BAUCHI Patients at the Abubakar Tafawa University Teaching hospital (ATBUTH), in Bauchi, are now at the receiving end as resident doctors in the hospital have joined the nationwide strike by the national body of the association. When Daily Sun went round the teaching hospital, on Wednesday, patients and their relations were seen lamenting the situation. Some patients who spoke with our correspondent appealed to the resident doctors to suspend the strike to ameliorate their plight. On Tuesday, an injured soldier, Lance Corporal Yunusa Yusuf, who was on a wheel chair, explained that he came to hospital since morning and till 3:00p.m was not attended to. Speaking to Daily Sun outside the Surgical Ward of the Teaching Hospital, Yusuf, who served with the 313 Artillery Air Defence, Minna, said he sustained a neck fracture in October 2015 during bush training exercise along Jos Road in Bauchi.
He said he had been receiving treatment at ATBUTH without any problem until the strike. His words, “I was here with my son and my younger brother since seven this morning. I have spent N1500 buying one form of drug or the other and they are saying no doctors because they are on strike. This is unfair. I am suffering. “As I am here over 40 patients have come and gone without being attended to. How can I go home like this? They want me to die” One Rukaiya Ibrahim, whose three years old son, Yakubu had pneumonia, was in a confused state as she spoke with our correspondent. The worried mother said: “Please my son should not die. They carried out a surgery on him two weeks ago and today he has been abandoned. He has been crying since morning and yet there is no doctor to attend to him” Rukaiya, whose son Yakubu was admitted at the paediatric ward of the teaching hospital, was sad that her son is helpless and crying with no doctor to attend to her. But some of the paediatrics nurses told our correspondent that Rukaiya had nothing to worry about as nurse were attending to Yakubu and all the children admitted in the ward, and that the boy would be fine. At the delivery suit, the complaint was the same: no doctors to attend to patients. Hajara Markus, whose younger sister, Martina Timothy, was rushed to the hospital, said apart from midwives, there was no single doctor to attend to the Martina.
“We rushed her here this morning because her legs were swollen and she was having serious pains. Since morning, no doctor has attended to her. A check round wards and other parts of the hospital show that activities were at its lowest. There were few vehicular and human activities in the hospital when our correspondent went round. At the Trauma Centre, the usual traffic was non-existence as the place was like a ghost town, Two doctors-a male and female- in green attire and statoscope, were seen sitting on a table at the entrance of the Emergency ward of the teaching hospital Daily Sun gathered that emergency cases were not attended to as most of the victims were either quickly treated or referred to other places or turned down. The Chief Medical Director of the teaching hospital, Dr Mohammed Alkali, told Daily Sun in his office on Tuesday that the strike was a nationwide as a result of issues with the national bodies of the union. Alkali said that the hospital has clearly notified the regular resident doctors and the locum doctors that by virtue of their appointments, they are not supposed to be a part of the strike. “I have received information that the locum have withdrawn from the strike. In the meantime, our consultants are also on ground to assist in attending to patients and the locum doctors are also around now to render services to patients,” he explained |
