THE Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Oyo State, has threatened to withdraw members’ services indefinitely from January 12, if the state government fails to correct the anomalies and injustices in the health sector.
The resident doctors made this known, on Thursday, in Ogbomoso, at a news conference jointly called by the branches of the association at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital (LTH), Ogbomoso, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The president of the UCH branch of the association, Dr Segun Olaopa, said every hospital in the state would be closed if government failed to take necessary action.
He said the association had engaged the government constructively and had always employed legitimate means of championing its causes.
He stated that “the association has dialogued with government over the years on the issues at stake without any meaningful progress.
“We are not surviving at all, but only mustering all energy at our disposal to save the lives of our people and patients,” he said.
Dr Sebastine Oiwoh, the president, LTH branch, appealed to the Chief Medical Directors of LTH and UCH and other stakeholders to ensure that the anomalies and injustices were corrected.
“Access to health is poor; affordability is non-existent and acceptability is grossly lacking.
“The National Health Act, that is supposed to resuscitate and salvage the poor health delivery system, is yet to be implemented,’’ he said.
Oiwoh stated that the prevailing encumbrances and sheer neglect by the state and federal governments has left the health of Nigerians far from normal.