The Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, (MDCAN EKSUTH) Ado-Ekiti has revealed that to avoid imminent collapse of quality health care delivery in the tertiary hospital, the state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, must address the poor working condition of staff in the health sector.
This came barely a week after the resident doctors in the hospital embarked on indefinite strike action over alleged irregularities in the payment of their salaries, alleged reduction in the monthly subvention to the hospital by the state government.
The specialists in a ‘Save the Soul of EKSUTH’ statement made available to Tribune Online, on Thursday, said being the backbone of qualitative healthcare delivery in any teaching hospitals and colleges of medicine, it is necessary to disclose to the general public and residents of the state of the avoidable imminent health crisis in the state.
The statement signed by the association’s chairman, Dr Lateef Oluwole and the Secretary, Dr Anthony Agbesanwa noted that the subvention given to the hospital has not been increased since 2013 thereby hampering the delivery of services to the people, saying that, “We had expected that EKSUTH would have been excluded from the recently implemented 50% reduction in subvention. A further 50% cut as recently done by the government will lead to a collapse of the system in EKSUTH.”
The consultants argued that they would not be able to guarantee any further health care delivery in the hospital if the government failed to urgently address their grievances in the interest of residents of the state.
They said, “We are a group of top echelons of healthcare practitioners who are senior medical doctors that provide specialist care to patients, conduct clinical researches and teach, train & mentor medical students as well as residents doctors (this is the category of doctors that are presently on strike in EKSUTH).
” We urge His Excellency, Dr John Kayode Fayemi to URGENTLY attend to the plight of the welfare of healthcare workers in EKSUTH. We and other staff in EKSUTH are in profound suffering. Poor remuneration, unpaid salaries and other allowances, poor or lack of basic health infrastructure and poor job satisfaction are the major causes of brain drain. The mass exodus of health workers especially doctors, pharmacists, nurses and laboratory scientists may soon hit EKSUTH due to lack of funding which will lead to a serious health crisis in the institutions including loss of accreditation for both the training of medical students and resident doctors as witnessed in the past by some tertiary health institutions.
“The imminent mass exodus of health workers from EKSUTH will definitely erode the various gains after close to a decade before the full accreditation was secured by the subsequent Governments.
” We have exercised great restraints, albeit in the interim, to show leadership by working at close pace with the hospital management without disrupting the service rendered at the hospital. However, we may not be able to sustain the much efforts we are putting in, if and when overwhelmed by both physical and emotional pressure. The Consultants may soon be burnt out. Thus, MDCAN EKSUTH may sooner or later not be able to guarantee smooth healthcare services any further.”
When contacted, the Commissioner for Information, Akin Omole said, “We will need time to respond to the issues you said the medical consultants raised in the statement and the government will up with a response.”
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