Residents doctors at the Federal Medical Center in Owo, Nigeria, under the direction of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), began a two-week warning strike on Thursday in protest of the hospital’s staff deaths.
The doctors who started the warning strike said it was inevitable and that members had been working “under dire stressful conditions” since the association’s general assembly.
Only 80 resident doctors and health officers are currently employed at the hospital, and none have been hired there in the previous four years, according to Dr. Olutobi Gideon Olaopa, president of the Owo FMC ARD.
According to him, about 300 doctors and house officers used to be in employment at the hospital but said many of them have left the system.
Olaopa said: “But now one person is doing the job of five persons. We have been on this issue since last year. The situation keeps getting worst because a lot of people are leaving the system.
The doctors voiced other concerns in a communique that was signed at the conclusion of their meeting, including the poor quality of the meals that were provided to them and the lack of suitable and secure housing for their coworkers who worked at the hospital’s annexe in Akure.
