Resident doctors in ATBUTH protest shortage of manpower

Dissatisfied by what was described as the dearth of manpower leading to ineffective service delivery, resident doctors of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi on Tuesday staged a peaceful protest against the management of the hospital.

The resident doctors blamed the management over the shortage of manpower in the hospital, declaring that if nothing was done to stop the imminent collapse of tertiary services by the hospital, the aims of its establishment will be defeated.

Under the aegis of Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), ATBUTH, Bauchi Chapter, the protesting doctors carried placards with various inscriptions including  “ATBUTH increase manpower”, “We want more employment for resident doctors”, “Federal Ministry of Health come to our Rescue” amongst others.

They also demanded that the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Government and all stakeholders in the health sector be responsive to their demand.

While speaking to journalists, president of the association in the state, Dr Sani Kabri, said that the peaceful protest became imperative due to the difficult conditions the resident doctors operate under in the hospital.

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He lamented that, “we have resident doctors that are at the forefront of healthcare delivery at the teaching hospital who are responsible for taking calls every day for two weeks. By taking calls, what it means is that the doctor will work from morning to 4 pm and continue the work trend all over again throughout the entire two weeks.”

Sani Kabir added that, “even if it is a machine that is working like that, the machine will one day breakdown. The one doctor to thirty patients ratio is not realistic because presently in the hospital, we have one doctor attending to over 100 patients in a day. It is a very pathetic and unfortunate situation these doctors have found themselves.”

The president of the association further appealed to the Federal Government and other stakeholders in the health sector to as a matter of urgency come to its rescue as the hospital is a tertiary institution that is saddled with the responsibility of services, research and training.

He, however, urged all members of the association to be law-abiding by respecting constituted authorities as the association was doing everything to address their plight.

All efforts to get the reaction of the hospital proved abortive as calls put through to the mobile number of the CMD, Dr Alkali Mohammed was diverted while SMS sent to the number though delivered was not responded to as at the time of filing this report.