The Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) have begun a five-day industrial action in protest of the assault on their colleague by relatives of a deceased patient.
An unnamed medical doctor with the hospital was beaten up by some loved ones of a patient, simply identified as Alhaji Saliu after his death in the facility.
The deceased died of blood cancer, but the assailants attributed his demise in a way to alleged nonchalance on the part of the medical team that supposed to handle him and took their anger out on a doctor, punching him multiple times.
This led to the arrest of one of them, Mustapha Saliu, son of the deceased, whose corpse is also seized.
The doctors have not closed door on the issue.
On Friday they began a five-day strike and marched in protest bearing various placards, with inscription simply calling for an end to patients and their loved ones attacking medical personnel, a common occurrence in the facility.
“This is one of several episodes of physical assault on members this year with no culprit prosecuted to a logical conclusion and several other assaults that have occurred on health care workers in the last few months within the hospital,” the President of ARD-UITH, Dr Mubaraq Ijaiya, told newsmen during the protest.
The doctors are also demanding the presence of armed security personnel at all emergency points within the hospital for the safety of their lives.
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