CoronaVirus Updates
Trouble in Lagos! Doctors begin indefinite strike 6pm today
…Over alleged police harassment
BY NICHOLAS ABE
Barring immediate pacification and reconciliation, doctors in Lagos State may be staying away from hospitals from 6pm, today, Wednesday, as the Nigerian Medical Association (Lagos State) has asked its members to embark on an indefinite “sit-at-home” strike.
The association’s grouse is alleged harassment and intimidation of its members by security agents in the state.
NMA gave the “stay-at-home directive” in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Saliu Oseni and Secretary, Dr Ramon Moronkola, on Wednesday.
The doctors accused police officers in Lagos of acting contrary to the directives of the federal government on lockdown order, noting that their members were unsafe.
The statement read, “We have observed that despite the directives of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Presidential Task Force on COVID 19, which was clear on the exemption of essential workers, including doctors and other health workers, from the ongoing lockdown/movement restrictions, (but) the Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Mr. Hakeem Odumosu, has been issuing conflicting directives on social and mainstream media to the effect that essential workers, including doctors and other health workers, are NOT exempted.
“As a direct result of the conflicting directives of the government and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Lagos State branch of Nigerian Medical Association was inundated yesterday (Tuesday) evening of several cases of harassment and intimidation of doctors and other health-workers by officers and men of the Lagos State Police Command to the extent that even ambulances carrying patients with emergency cases were impounded. This has become a recurrent issue.
READ: Police under fire over ‘harassment’ of health workers on essential duties
“The Lagos State Branch of the NMA has resolved that it is presently unsafe for members to continue to provide healthcare services under the present confused arrangement.
“You are hereby advised to proceed on a sit-at-home, in your best interest, starting from 6pm today, Wednesday, 20th May, 2020 indefinitely, until otherwise advised.”
The Lagos NMA and the Medical Guild had at the inception of the lockdown called out the police over “undue” harassment of health workers, one of the few groups on essential services, exempted by the presidential order locking down Lagos and Ogun states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The NMA in a release signed by its Chairman, Dr Saliu Oseni, said a statement made by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, that health workers, in addition to carrying valid means of identification, must show evidence of being on duty whenever they move around the state was “unfortunate”.
Oseni added that the statement by the CP exposed its members and other healthcare workers to unwarranted harassment by the police.