As the doctors’ strike clocks one month, tomorrow, it has been tales of agony and untold hardship for many patients in Kaduna State who have since been abandoned by their physicians.
Empty beds and closed offices convey the situation in most public hospitals in Kaduna metropolis as the strike has left the patients in despair. Most of the beds inside the wards of public hospitals are now empty. Those who are still there are not being attended to by the doctors as they have their destinies hang in the balance between life and death.
At the antenatal unit of the Yusuf Dantosho hospital, Tudun Wada, there were many pregnant women but no doctors to attend to them.
Some of them appealed to the federal government to amicably resolve their differences with the striking doctors. Some of them said they had no option but to stay put because they could not afford the fees of a private hospital like others.
With no definite date for the suspension of the strike, there are fears that the industrial action could lead into a full blown crisis in the health sector if it is not urgently addressed.
The Kaduna branch of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), said the strike will continue until the federal government yields to the demands of the doctors.
Speaking to Channels Television after the meeting, Dr Muhammed Ibrahim, the Kaduna State NMA chairman insisted that the union’s action is patriotic and humane.
