LAGOS— Hundreds of medical doctors were on ground in Lagos at the Gani Fawehinmi Memorial Park in Ojota to provide immediate medical attention to protesters who sustained injuries during yesterday’s mass action to protest the recent implementation of fuel subsidy removal by President Goodluck Jonathan, even as most public hospitals and health centres across the state were devoid of normal services as patients stayed away.
The doctors, under the auspices of the Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, Lagos State branch who were dressed in their ward coat and stethoscope however, explained that the rationale behind their full participation, was based on the fact that the action of the Federal Government would make it more difficult for over 70 per cent of Nigerians to have access to healthcare services.
Chairman of the State branch, Dr Edamisan Temiye who spoke to Vanguard at the end of the exercise said with the removal of subsidy, the majority of Nigerians who spent out of pocket on healthcare would be worse off as many of them will no longer visit the hospitals.
He said: “We only treated five people who sustained injury but not from the police during the protest. We have enough First Aid materials to support the protest in case of any emergencies or casualties.”
While calling on President Jonathan to revert to N65 per litre of petrol, he urged the President to listen to the voice of reasoning because the crowd at the Lagos protest were not just area boys but responsible Nigerians who should not be taken for granted.
He further said: “I am happy it was successful today and we hope to be there throughout the period of the protest.”
Temiye said members of the NMA decided to join the action because Nigeria has one of the poorest health indices in the world today because of poverty and 70 per cent of Nigerians depend on out of pocket payment for their health needs.
He said, already, the NMA has directed its members to ensure that all the emergency units of both private and public hospitals in the state are open for services. Expressing shock on the news of shootings in parts of the state, Temiye called for investigation by the authorities.
“President Jonathan by his action has only succeeded in tripling the sufferings of Nigerians. The escalating pump price is another strategy by President Jonathan to reduce the number of Nigerians and this is not acceptable.
“If you have a cabal in government and you cannot deal with them, what is the guarantee that we should trust you? We cannot continue to trust a government who has released its people to a group of cabal to continue to milk us dry.
The government has sacrificed us to this cabal and we are saying enough is enough. We cannot allow a President that we voted into power to kill us because of some cabal. If he can release us to this cabal, how can we trust him again?
Meanwhile, although normal services were in place at some public hospitals in the state, the medical personnel had nothing muich to do as patients stayed away in compliance with the stay at home directive by the NLC/TUC.
At the Lagos University teaching Hoapital, Idi-Araba, all the regular clinics were open including the Accident & Emergency ward, but only very few patients were available to be attended to.
The Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja, was also open to the public although only emergency cases were being attended to even though in-patients were adequately taken care of by the medical personnel.
It was also gathered at the General Hospital, Lagos, no cases of any sort were attended to as the hospital gates were under lock and key. It was a similar scenario at other hospitals visited.-Vanguard
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