Healthcare: Incessant Strikes May Lead to Policies Failure  

Some stakeholders in the health sector have agreed that incessant strikes would result to inadequate healthcare delivery with government policies adversely affected.

The stakeholders stated their position during a chat with newsmen in Lagos against the backdrop of the indefinite strike embarked on by doctors employed by the Lagos State Government.

Dr Sa’eid Ahmad, the President, Association of Resident Doctors, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, said that incessant strikes had dire implications on patients, doctors and the government.

“Patients are of different grades, including those who have chronic conditions that they carry for a long period of time and need constant monitoring.

“There are those who come down with acute conditions that need urgent attention, and there are those who get involved in accident and therefore need emergencies.

“All of these patients are going to be adversely affected when there is a strike.

“Strikes will affect the doctors’ delivery of healthcare, his or her training as a resident doctor will be affected also.

“When a government allows a strike to happen, it is seen as a failure and cannot keep its promises to deliver healthcare to its people.

“The government also has a lot to lose when its workers on strike cannot deliver services and run the hospital smoothly and it will amount to unnecessary wastage,” he said.

The president said the way to avoid incessant strikes would require a government to be more responsible to its citizens, including healthcare providers.

“A government which has the primary responsibility of providing healthcare delivery to it citizens, also, owe an equal amount of responsibility to the healthcare providers.

“They should be more responsive to the needs of the healthcare providers they have employed.

“The government should also provide an enabling environment such that healthcare providers will be able to deliver to their optimum where they spent years training for.

“They have to provide adequate and appropriate facilities in order to provide quality healthcare to its citizens,” he said.

Ahmad urged providers of healthcare to try and resolve situations with their employer and make going on strike only a last resort.

He also urged the public to hold the government responsible for the happenings in the health sector.

“Members of the public have to learn to hold the government responsible to live up to their expections of adequate healthcare delivery by providing the enabling environment,” he said.

Also speaking, the Chairman, Joint Health Sector Union, Lagos Chapter, Mr Rasheed Bamishe, said that both the government and workers should ensure harmonious industrial relations in averting strikes.

Bamishe said, “Harmonious industrial relations will ensure that both parties will be able to negotiate in such a way that they both benefit from.

“There should be sincerity on the part of the employer, in this case, the government so that negotiation will be easy.”

In his remarks, the Secretary, Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos Chapter, Dr Babajide Saheed, said that policies of government will be affected by incessant strikes.

“The policy of government toward good healthcare delivery will be affected because plans will be disrupted.

“If they want to plan for a year, for instance, incessant strikes will make implementation of policies difficult.

“Gross human productivity will be affected if there is no good health to enable people to perform well and directly or indirectly it will affect the generality of every government activities,” Saheed said.

He urged the government to create an enabling environment in terms of welfare, training and research for its workforce.

Saheed said the government owed it to its workforce to keep to agreements made.

“Health workers should be trained continuously because we live in a dynamic world and workers should be given grants for research in order to improve health sector generally,” he said.

Also, the Chief Medical Director, LASUTH, Dr Wale Oke, said that the way forward was for both the workforce and management to negotiate meaningfully.

“Negotiation between both parties will solve problems that will avert any form of industrial action,” he said.