UPTH Doctors: No Going Back On Strike, Until…

The resident doctors of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) say there is no going back on their strike till their kidnapped colleague Dr. Ononuju Chidiebere is released from the den of his captors.

President of the Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria, UPTH, Dr Chizindu Alikor who stated this in an exclusive interview with The Tide Thursday at UPTH said the doctors have suffered unduely in the face of militancy, adding that the strike is part of the strategy to press for the release of their kidnapped colleague.

Alikor regretted that the kidnapping of medical doctors has been on the increase because of the nature of their works describing the incessant kidnapping of doctors as unacceptable, barbaric and quite unfortunate. 

The president explained that the indefinite strike is a protest against indiscriminate kidnapping of medical doctors and a call on the Police, Security Agencies and the Rivers State Government to work in synergy in brining the perpetrators of the crime to book.

He also called on Government and Security Agencies at all levels to assist doctors to remain focused in a bid to carryout their duties effectively.

Meanwhile, the Chief Medical Director UPTH, Prof Aaron Ojule has lent his voice to the call for the release of the kidnapped doctor, saying that the case is a security matter which only security apparatus can handle.

While justifying the action of the doctors, Ojule however regretted that the strike has affected work in the teaching hospital, thereby forcing the patients to vacant the hospital and seek for attention elsewhere.

In an hospital setting when resident doctors are on strike, it automatically cripple activities of the hospital and also affect patients more because most of them cannot afford to access treatment at the private hospitals,” the UPTH CMD said.

Sogbeba Dokubo