Health Minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, on Saturday in Lagos appealed to doctors and health workers in the country to make strike the last option in pressing for their demands.
Chukwu, who was in Lagos to pay a condolence visit to the family of the late Dr Moses Majekodunmi, founder of St. Nicholas Hospital, Lagos, said doctors and health workers should live up to the oath of their jobs.
The minister spoke against the backdrop of a recent strike called by doctors in Lagos State hospitals.
He noted that some of the demands of the doctors, such as payment of teaching allowance for house officers, were unreasonable.
“If the truth must be told, who are the house officers teaching? They are there to learn and not to teach.
“Payment of such an allowance is unnecessary,” Chukwu said in a statement obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Chukwu stressed the need by medical professionals to prevent loss of innocent lives under the guise of going on strike to press home their demands.
He added: “It is important that doctors dialogued with appropriate authorities to make their grievances known and put heads together to find a way out instead of going on strike.
On the death of Majekodunmi, he described it as a huge loss to the nation’s health sector.
“He was one of the pioneers of various health projects in Nigeria.
Although, his death was a huge loss, the principles he left behind are going to last forever and worked upon to provide better healthcare service delivery in Nigeria,’’ Chukwu said.
He recalled that the College of Medicine (now Lagos University Teaching Hospital) was established during his tenure as the Minister of Health in 1962.
The minister also lauded the late Majekodunmi’s intervention in healthcare through his hospital – St. Nicholas Hospital.
“It has helped to provide treatment for diseases which public hospitals did not have equipment for thereby reducing the number of people going abroad for treatment’’.
The eldest son of the late Majekodunmi, Femi, thanked the minister for the visit and the support given the family.
NAN reports that officials who accompanied the minister included Dr Yewande Jinadu, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Meta; Dr Wahab Yinusa, the Medical Director, NationalOrthopedic Hospital, Lagos; and Dr Rahman Lawal, the Medical Director, Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba.
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