Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun has approved the requests of the resident doctors of the Olabisi Onabanjo University teaching hospital, Sagamu, by ordering the immediate recruitment of the doctors for the health institution.
Abiodun gave the order five hours after the doctors embarked on an indefinite strike and protested within the premises of the hospital over the alleged refusal of the government to recruit new resident doctors to address the acute shortage of doctors in the institution.
The doctors who spoke through their President, Dr. Osikoya Oludotun, said it became imperative to embark on an indefinite strike to protest the alleged loss of accreditation for full training of resident doctors.
Oludotun said the development had dampened the morale of the staff of the teaching hospital.
The President further explained that the resident doctors have tried to meet the management and the representatives of the government on different occasions, but, their meetings had not yielded positive results.
He added, “The inertia is really disturbing, we sincerely want to take care of our patients; we don’t want poor outcomes. But, this is already happening when the doctors are working under hectic conditions and the health of the caregivers is also seriously endangered.
“We have been forced to resort to this measure, after many notices and warnings that we cannot go on like this, in the hope that the government will wake up to the real issues.
“Our fundamental plea to the state government is that it is of an urgent need to immediately replace the many resident doctors who have exited the system over the past few years.”
Meanwhile, the state governor through a statement issued by his Chief Press secretary, Kunle Somorin, on Monday, said he would follow the recommendations submitted by the Administrative Panel set up to look into the remote and immediate causes of the challenges facing the teaching hospital.
Abiodun explained that he has approved the recommendations for the recruitment of resident doctors to fill the manpower shortage at the teaching hospital.
The statement further read “In line with the interim recommendations submitted by the Administrative Panel set up to look into the remote and immediate causes of the challenges facing the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), the Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, has approved the immediate recruitment of resident doctors for the health institution.
“The Governor had frowned at the infrastructural and staff deficits facing the Teaching Hospital on his visit to the Hospital in June. He had also promised to return the tertiary healthcare facility to its past glory.
“While inaugurating the committee, he had charged members to assess the operational modalities of the hospital and to suggest how to improve the standard in tandem with an acceptable universal standard for medical training, research, and tertiary health care services”.