UBTH turns back patients as doctors join protest strike

As members of the National Association Resident Doctors (NARD), the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), joined their counterparts across the country to embark on a warning strike, scores of patients who visited the hospital on Monday were turned back.

Many of the patients who were turned back were those who had Monday as the date of their appointment with their doctors, with many of them travelling to Benin from different locations within and outside Edo State.

The ARD, it would be recalled, had declared a seven-day warning strike over the abduction of their colleague, Dr Ganiyat Popoola, who was kidnapped about eight months ago in Kaduna.

Popoola, a senior registrar in the Department of Ophthalmology, National Eye Centre, Kaduna, was abducted on December 27, 2023, alongside her husband and nephew. However, her husband was released by their abductors in March 2024, while Popoola and her nephew have remained in captivity.

Dr Dele Abdullahi, President of NARD, while declaring the warning strike, warned that the strike, which began at midnight of August 26, would be “total. There will be no concessions, there will be no emergency care.”

One of the patients who were turned back at the UBTH on Monday, who simply identified herself as Felicia, expressed dismay over the development

Felici, who stated that she travelled several kilometres to honour an appointment with her doctor, added that she also defied the early morning downpour to find her way to the hospital only to be turned back.

“I wasted my time and over N3,000 transport to and fro the hospital. I defied the early morning downpour only to be turned back.” She lamented.

Members of the NARD had, before the Monday warning strike, held protest rallies in all tertiary institutions across the country, calling for the unconditional release of Dr Popoola to no avail.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE