Medical professionals under the aegis of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) at Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso, have reeled out conditions for tackling of the coronavirus in Oyo State.
This was contained in a statement jointly signed by the association’s President and General Secretary, Abraham Akinbola and Abubakar Usman respectively.
The group stated that the conditions were borne out of a thorough observation of the situation and facilities available to fight the deadly virus.
The medical experts urged the state government to make adequate provision for standard Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including Hazmats’s suit for health workers at the frontline of the crisis across the state.
Accordingly, they demanded the upgrading of the Isolation Centre at the teaching hospital in Ogbomoso in order to accommodate more Covid-19 patients and proper arrangements should be made to employ more staff at the hospital.
In the statement, the resident doctors noted that the Virology Laboratory in the College of Health Sciences of the hospital in Ogbomoso is in dire need of an upgrade to Biosafety level 3.
“Government should ensure appropriate personnel is engaged to help the state government, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and WHO in the fight against this pandemic,” the statement read.
Speaking on the welfare state of health workers, they called for proper appreciation of health workers in the state as recently done by the Federal Government, saying they deserved this as frontline workers in the COVID-19 battle.
“All health workers in the country are frontline health workers, the same as those in isolation centres.“A group life insurance policy must be put in place to cater for indemnity of our members in the course of discharging their duties both during this pandemic era and thereafter,” it added.
It further called for urgent action on the perennial challenges facing the teaching hospital such as payment of one-year salary arrears.
The statement advocated the implementation of the corrected CONMESS for payment of salary to attract more doctors to the teaching hospital in Ogbomoso.
It also called for the enrollment of the hospital’s staff into the new minimum wage payment platform in the state as well as increasing the institution’s monthly subvention.
The statement said the conditions were given in the hope that Gov. Seyi Makinde would take necessary steps toward implementing them.
