The strike action embarked upon by medical doctors employed by Lagos State government is in its second week with both sides sticking to their guns. The government has threatened to employ new doctors but the stricking doctors insist that no new doctor will take up the offer as it will amount to processional misconduct, an offence punishable under the medical and Dental Council of Nigeria Act. Meanwhile, patients groan and die. Muda Oyeniran presents the story of how the fighting of two elephants visit agony on the grass in Lagos State.IN what many people have described as one strike too many, doctors in the employment of the Lagos State government under the aegis of the Medical Guilds have again downed their tools. The doctors began an indefinite strike almost two weeks ago following the decision of the state government to punish them for a three-day warning strike they had earlier embarked on between Wednesday April 11 and FridayApril 13, 2012.Some of the doctors, who had earlier been issued queries for the roles they played during the warning strike, which reportedly embarrassed the state government, were to appear before the Personnel Management Board (PMB) set up by the state government on Tuesday April 24. But the heavy presence of security men at the Health Service Commission, Lagos Island; venue of the panel sitting, was perceived by the doctors as an act of intimidation, according to the medical doctors who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune. This, Nigerian Tribune, gathered, infuriated the doctors leading to the immediate declaration of an indefinite strike.In the last three years, Lagos doctors have been at loggerheads with the state government over the implementation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Scale (CONMESS) and on issues bordering on tax deductions from their salaries.Speaking on the doctors' grouse with the state government, the Chairman of the Medical Guilds, Dr. Olumuyiwa Odusote said: "One year after the Lagos State Government entered into the agreements to implement CONMESS fully and do a downward review of the excessive tax regime, the Lagos State Government has refused to implement CONMESS. Rather than a downward review of the excessive taxation, in October 2011, the monthly tax paid by doctors was increased.Odusote said members of the executives had held several meetings with the government, presented several documents and written several letters of appeal to resolve the outstanding issues in order to prevent a disruption in the industrial peace in the health sector.However, he said all the entreaties of the doctors had failed as the government had been reneging on its promises and shifting timelines for implementation of the agreement.He said the executive of the Medical Guild had met with the Lagos State governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, adding that the issues had remained unresolved.The Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Edamisan Temiye, has said that the association is in support of the indefinite strike declared by the striking state doctors.Temiye, who addressed the press after the association's emergency meeting recently said that the state doctors would not face any disciplinary panel for participating in a legal strike.'The doctors would not face any panel. We appeal to the Lagos State government to retract the action of war and intimidation it has embarked upon. Any attempt to arrest, dismiss or humiliate any of our members will lead to actions that may spread beyond Lagos State,' he said.He added that the leadership of the association had written to the state government requesting for a meeting in order to resolve the crisis amicably.However, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr.Jide Idris, has insisted that striking doctors must face the disciplinary panel and also provide explanations to the queries issued to them.Idris noted that the doctors' refusal to face the panel following queries issued to them for participating in a three-day-warning strike was a violation of the public service rule of the state.'You cannot fight your employers. If you are a civil servant you must adhere to the rules of the civil service. Discipline must be maintained. Doctors cannot wake up and say they are going on strike. If you are a civil servant, your employer deserves to know why you won't come to work,' he said.Idris added that if the striking doctors did not reply the queries it would open more avenues for other health workers to be embarking on strikes.'You cannot entrust lives of people to those who can decide that they are not coming to work at anytime. If they are not satisfied with our negotiations, they should leave,"Meanwhile the Lagos state government has started recruiting new doctors to replace the striking ones in order to prevent needless loss of lives.The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee to the Lagos State Governor, Dr. Ore Falomo said more than a quarter of the striking doctors were newly recruited by the state.He accused the striking doctors of being inconsiderate, disrespectful and fraudulent saying that their perpetual strike action was capable of putting the medical profession which respects the sanctity of human life into disrepute.'There will be replacement of the striking doctors in our hospitals. The NYSC doctors will be deployed to hospitals to take care of emergency services while doctors in private practice will provide medical services in public hospitals in the state free of charge. The strikingdoctors should stop playing God', he addedFalomo who is the grand patron of the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria(AGPMPN), the umbrella body of doctors in private practice also disclosed that his members would provide free medical services for emergency cases in state-owned hospitals across the state in order to cushion the effects of the strike."We are not justifying strike or no strike but this a noble profession that has to do with lives and this is why we are saying that there are better ways to achieve their aims and objectives instead of embarking on strike at the slightest opportunity. Nobody can pay doctors enough but they should change their methodology," he also said.The body also advised that henceforth, there should be an undertaklng by House Officers and resident doctors not to engage in strike actions."We believe medical doctors should be guided by the Hippocratic Oath sworn to and exhaust all possible avenues for negotiation and lobbying without paralyzing healthcare services in entirety', he addedBut the striking Lagos doctors have asked the public to hold the state government responsible for the loss of lives suffered during the ongoing strike.Odusote called on the public to prevail on the state government to resolve the crisis rocking the health sector."I groan within me to see Lagosians suffer. So ask the government about the casualties and the lives that have been lost," he said.However, Odusote called on the public to support them in their "struggle for efficiency in the health sector."There is a general belief that those in authority do not use the facilities in public hospitals. So those who use the facilities are the masses and they are the ones who are going to suffer. It's a struggle that everybody must partake in," he said, adding that 'there is a limit to what they can do, so when they get to their limit, what happens next'He denied claims that newly recruited doctors were brought in to replace them, saying "it's impossible to replace doctors with about 25 years of experience with doctors with just two years of experience."Temiye also warned doctors to refuse any attempt by the state government to recruit them to replace the striking doctors."Any doctor recruited to replace the ones Lagos State intends to sack will be sanctioned. Your action would be interpreted as professional misconduct, an offence punishable under the medical and Dental Council of Nigeria Act" he said.The doctors claim that the improved salary structure is a benchmark that will regulate the medical profession and reduce brain drain.Patients groanMeanwhile, the fate of patients in over 20 general hospitals and a teaching hospital, will hang in balance pending the resolution of the issue.Patients at the Lagos Island Maternity Hospital have however, appealed to the two parties to resolve the dispute.A pregnant woman, Chika Samuel, who was supposed to put to bed through Caesarean Section, said she could not get a doctor to attend to her.Another lady, Misitura Bankole, who was scheduled for an operation had to return home in despair."We beg the government to negotiate because we can't afford to go to a private clinic," she said.At the Gbagada General Hospital, patients expressed dismay at the doctors' refusal to attend to them.A woman, who identified herself as Ijeoma, with an appointment for a surgical operation, was wailing after she was turned back by the nurses."It's so unfortunate that this can be going on in Lagos for this long; I urge the doctors and the government to resolve their differences and save the lives of innocent citizens," she said.A pregnant woman, Mrs Airat Gbadamosi, billed to deliver this week, told the Nigeria Tribune that a private hospital around her area in Iyana Ipaja requested for a sum of N70, 000 from her . 'This is just for normal delivery. If it is Caesarian Section, it can go for as high as N200,000. We appeal to the doctors and government to resolve their dispute on time because of the poor masses like us', she begged
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